Paul Schulte scored 18 out of his 20 points in the first half, helping U.S. crush Brazil 87-41 to win its second pool B match in the men's wheelchair basketball of the Beijing Paralympics at the USTB Gymnasium on Monday.
Silver medallist in Sydney 2000 Schulte was perfect beyond the arc scoring all of his four attemps before the main break as the United States rallied to a 39-23 win.
Jeff Glasbrenner had 13 points and Joe Chambers added 11 points for the United States.
"You know, we may be good but there are many good teams here. We just have to be ready every single day. You can't be over-confident," said Schulte, the guard of U.S. team.
"We were able to beat them by a large margin. But to other teams I would give a warning about Brazil. They are an experienced team who shouldn't be taken lightly."
"If we allow them to get too hot, it's then a lot harder to stop them. So we had to get our lead early in the first quarter to keep them from getting too hot."
On the contrary, Brazil's top players, Erick Silva and Irio Nunes combined for only nine points in the half after combining for 49 points on Sunday's match against Australia.
The Brazilians suffered from their opponent's full-court defensive pressure, led by Matt Scott, the best defender in the world, and the South Americans struggled to take open shots, especially in the third quarter, when they stayed scoreless during the first nine minutes.
Paul Jackson, one of the United States' assistant coaches, was showing different numbers to the players to change their defence's strategy on every Brazil's attack.
The U.S. took profit from their steals and defensive rebounds to score 22 points from turnovers.
"That was exciting. Anytime you put an international team together it's good. We have a lot of offence and our team is known for defence and we showed it," said U.S. forward Scott.
"We came out with a lot of focus and high energy. I think though we settled too much in the second quarter, but we picked it back up in the third.
"In the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games, we finished seventh and in the 2006 World Championships we took the silver. We're getting better year by year and day by day," added he.
The U.S. team will next play Britain on their third match, while Brazil will meet Israel. Both matches will be played at the National Indoor Stadium on Tuesday.
(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2008)