Brazil 92, China 60 - Game 1

Brazil beat China today in Barueri, 92-60, in the first of two warm-up games for the World Champs. Both Iziane and the Chinese players were late arrivals. Izi had to tend to personal matters in her hometown of São Luís, MA and arrived at the arena 40 minutes before tipoff. That didn't stop her from leading all scorers with 22 points. Janeth was a late scratch from the lineup after spending the night at a local hospital with what was diagnosed as food poisoning. She should be good to go tomorrow. The Chinese players looked every bit of being jet-lagged, but they were the ones attacking the basket in the first quarter. Brazil didn't start rolling until AC Barbosa benched the starting frontcourt in favor of Érika and Êga. Érika paced a 32-point second quarter with 14 straight points in the paint. She seems to have added a couple of post moves and is finishing strong around the basket, which explains the fact that she was fouled 6 times and converted 4 3-point plays. She was unstoppable on offense, but a little too tentative on defense. The silly fouls persist, which should limit her playing time. She finished with 20 points on 7-9 shooting. Êga added the hustle plays and fought for every loose ball. She might have secured her place in the rotation as Jucimara barely played. Micaela was the surprise of the day, at least for me. A guard combo of her and Izi is the closest thing to racing on a basketball court. I can't explain how fast they are on the break, a real joy to watch. The PG problems persist, but Adriana looked better at directing traffic than Helen. She also had good speed and played reasonably well for someone who has been training for only a couple of months. Still, the perimeter defense is more porous than Sponge Bob. Our luck was that China missed 13 of 15 3-point attempts. It didn't mean they didn't get open looks though. I could've written a thesis with the time they were given to position themselves to shoot the ball.
Should we be worried that the reserves were the ones to put the game away?
The starting lineup is old. Alessandra and Cintia are a step or two slower than when I last saw them. Izi is the only starter on the right side of 30. That could mean that we're either deep or that our starters can't keep up. I'll choose the former, I don't want to start freaking out before the meaningful games.
I'll wait to give an opinion on China tomorrow, they really looked out of it. I couldn't identify a Tom Maher offense, they looked pretty much like South Korea, moving the ball hoping to get an open look. When they penetrated, they got fouled, which doesn't mean they can do it, it means we are not switching on defense.
The officiating was ok. The 3-second violation still bothers me as it's a makeup call, not an actual violation. The offensive charges were called correctly for the most part, but the ticky-tack fouls were there, as usual.
All in all, it was an enjoyable game and it gives me hope, especially after seeing too few dumb substitutions by AC Barbosa. BUT...the opponent was undermanned. I hope to see them at full strenght only in the Worlds, still the US should beat them quite easily.

Random Notes:
The arena looks good, there's a good parking lot, but the traffic to get there is really terrible from downtown. I come from the West Side, but let's see how that works during rush hour on a Tuesday, when my license plate isn't supposed to be circulating. The soccer stadium seats are uncomfortable to sit in, so I'll probably have to bring my own padding since I wasn't given any naturally. Decent crowd for a Saturday morning.
Next game is tomorrow at 10 a.m. (Sportv)

Scores:
BRAZIL 92 (15 + 32 + 23 + 22)
CHINA 60 (22 + 10 + 11 + 17)

Brazil: Helen (11), Iziane (22), Micaela (9), Êga (8) and Alessandra (2).
Érika (20), Cíntia Tuiú (6), Kelly (6), Sílvia Gustavo (5), Palmira (3) and Adrianinha (0).
Head Coach: Antonio Carlos Barbosa.

China: Xiao Yun Song (6), Li Jie Miao (13), Lan Bian (0), Xiao Ni Zhang (13) and Nan Chen (8).
Wei Zhang (5), Fei Fei Sui (4), Xiao Li Chen (8), Dan Liu (3), Guang Jia (0) and Li Wei Song (0).
Head Coach: Tom Maher (AUS).

Check CBB for the Official Game Recap and Box Score.