Steve Kerr and Steph Curry are fond of young Golden State Warriors forward Gui Santos, but they showed no mercy facing his Brazilian squad in the Olympic basketball quarterfinals. Curry and Santos each scored 7 points, but Team USA won over the Brazilians in a 122-87 blowout Tuesday in Paris.
Curry hit both of his three-pointers and all three of his free throws in his 17 minutes, as the blowout let Kerr give minutes to all 12 of his players. In the first half, it was all about Joel Embiid, who scored 14 points and hit three triples, and LeBron James, who scored 10 points, handed out eight assists, and stole the ball from the overmatched Brazilian team three times.
After leading by 27 points at halftime, Team USA took their foot of the gas a bit in the second half. Brazil nearly doubled their 36 first-half points with a prolific third quarter, outscoring the Americans 35-31. They got a second straight huge effort from former lottery pick Bruno Caboclo, who scored 30+ points again, going 13-for-20 from the floor.
Santos had a block and a steal in an energetic performance where he also committed four fouls. In a game like this, where every player Santos defended was an All-Star, sometimes excessive fouls are just a sign of excessive effort.
Former Warrior Kevin Durant was already the highest-scoring American man in Olympic history, but he passed Lisa Leslie for the overall record with a third-quarter bucket. He finished with 11 points.
The game was moderately competitive early, but Team USA scored the final 15 points of the third quarter to take a commanding lead, putting an exclamation point on their first-half effort when James hit Jayson Tatum, seemingly recovered from the emotional trauma of sitting out Team USA’s first game, for an alley-oop dunk.
