Brazil stays hot, will face U.S. in GLOBL JAM men's final

TORONTO – Dikembe Andre scored 17 points and added collected six rebounds to lead Brazil to the GLOBL JAM men’s tournament championship game with a 79-56 drubbing of Italy Saturday afternoon at Mattamy Athletic Centre.

Caio Pacheco added 15 for Brazil, knocking down three three-pointers, including one in a momentum-shifting third quarter that saw the Brazilian catch fire from behind the arc, going 4-for-8 from deep in that period alone.

“I’m very proud of the guys,” said Brazil head coach Tiago Splitter, a former NBA player, after the game. “This young group came from Brazil and most of them don’t have the same opportunities that other nations have and I’m super proud of what we have accomplished here. And I’m not even talking about winning or losing. It’s more about how serious they take every game – for us, every game is like a final – and they play freely on offence and very tough on defence.”

Italy was led by Mattia Palumbo’s 13 points, but shot poorly, making just 36.5 per cent of its field-goal attempts, going just 4-for-20 from three-point range.

“Credit to Brazil for the way they played the game,” said Italian coach Marco Ramondino. “Every detail that went on during the game went in their direction so there’s a reason why things went like this. They deserved to win. They played better. So, congratulations to them.”

Despite the result, Ramondino said he and his team had a great experience participating in GLOBL JAM and would be open to making a return.

“Yeah, definitely,” the Italian coach said when asked if he would want to take part in another GLOBL JAM tournament. “For us, it’s huge. So it would be great for us to get another invitation.

“I think this is what we need. To compete, face adversity, have a real picture of who we are, where we are, what stage we’re at, and maybe get punched, get knocked around but from there start to get better.”

After beginning its tournament with an 89-75 loss to Canada in its first game, Brazil has racked off three wins straight and will now go on to face the United States in the final.

The last time Italy and Brazil met during group play of this tournament, Yago dos Santos went off for 28 points as he helped Brazil to a 72-68 victory.

This go-around, though, Brazil didn’t need the heroics of its star point guard – who scored 14 in the victory – as it dominated nearly for the entire 40 minutes.

The game got off to a sluggish start, with the first points of the game not coming until about two and a half minutes of time had already expired on an Anderson Barbosa layup. The bucket woke Brazil up and got it into the game as it carried a 20-11 advantage after the first 10 minutes of play.

As the second quarter began, Italy got off to a 9-2 run to cut Brazil’s lead to just two. Leonardo Okeke would tie the game up at 24-24 for Italy with a little under five minutes left to play in the period with a layup, but an 8-0 Brazilian run immediately afterwards restored their lead as they were up 37-30 at the halftime break.

Brazil then put the game away in the third quarter, jumping out to a 13-4 run to begin the frame as it built a 50-34 lead with 6:41 left to play in the period and never looked back from there as it led 59-45 after three quarters and cruised to victory in the fourth.

“We had guys on their team that we knew that we were going to pressure more and guys that we were going to pressure less,” said Splitter of his team’s game plan against Italy. “So, those guys whom we pressured less took the shots and that’s something that we lived with.”

GLOBL JAM is a first-of-its-kind under-23 international basketball tournament hosted by Canada Basketball.

Participating countries in the men’s tournament include the host Canadians, Brazil, Italy and the United States.