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USA Moves on at FIBA World Cup
9/6/2014 6:12:00 PM | Men's Basketball
BARCELONA -- Team USA moved in the quarterfinals of the 2014 FIBA World Cup with a dominating 86-63 win over Mexico Saturday at Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Spain. Stephen Curry paced the way for the USA squad with 20 points, including 11 straight points during a third quarter run, while going 6-of-9 from three-point range in the game.
The USA will play Slovenia (5-1), which advanced after beating Dominican Republic (2-3) 71-61, in the quarterfinals at 3 p.m. EDT Sept. 9 in Barcelona.
"Overall I was pleased because it's our sixth game in eight days, and we had this early game to get going," said USA coach Mike Krzyzewski (Duke University). "I thought we continued to play good defense until the last few minutes when they just threw in two or three threes; they'd only had one three. So our defense on the three was terrific and especially on (Hector) Hernandez, who is their best 3-point shooter, and he didn't score. Those are things we game planned for, and our guys responded."
Curry's Golden State teammate Klay Thompson finished with 15 points; James Harden (Houston Rockets) added 12 points; DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento Kings), who followed up Curry's third-quarter streak with nine straight points of his own, finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots; and Rudy Gay scored 10 points to round out the double-digit scorers.
The USA jumped ahead 13-2 to start the game, but Mexico responded with a 7-0 run to cut it to 13-9 at 4:21. Curry hit a three-pointer to end Mexico's spurt, and after one more score from Mexico, the USA closed with seven straight points to lead 23-13 at the first break.
The USA hit three three-pointers in the second quarter, including two from Harden, who scored 10 points in the period, to help outscore Mexico 19-14 and take a 42-27 lead at halftime.
At the midway point, the USA actually was shooting better from three-point range (. 429) than from inside the arc (.400), and it when on to finish the game shooting 46.6 percent from the field (34-73 FGs) and 44.8 percent from three-point distance (13-29 3pt FGs).
The USA's 15-point, 42-27 halftime lead quickly ballooned to 27 points (57-30) after a score from Kyrie Irving (Cleveland Cavaliers) and Curry's 11 straight points from 7:12 to 4:15. Cousin's had the next nine points for the USA, and then a score by Gay helped the USA take a commanding 66-38 lead at the third-quarter break. The U.S. defense gave up just 11 points in the stanza.
"Our defense - that's going to win us games," Harden said. "We're so talented offensively. Defensively if we can just click and make sure we're on the same page for the most part, we'll be pretty good."
As the USA already had secured the win, Mexico outscored the USA 25-20 in the fourth quarter to bring the game to its 86-63 final.
While the USA's scoring was spread across nine players and five in double-figures, Mexico's NBA free agent Gustavo Ayon scored 25 of his team's points.
In other round of 16 games in Madrid, France (4-2) beat Croatia (3-3) 69-64, and host Spain (6-0) thumped Senegal (2-4) to also advance.
The remaining Round of 16 games, which will be played tomorrow, include: New Zealand (2-3) - Lithuania (4-1) at 10 a.m. EDT and Turkey (3-2) - Australia (3-2) at 2 p.m. EDT in Barcelona. In Madrid, the lineup is Serbia (2-3) - Greece (5-0) at 12 p.m. EDT and Brazil (4-1) - Argentina (3-2) at 4 p.m. EDT.
Additional information on Team USA including complete game recaps, box scores, quotes and more are available at www.usab.com.
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