OLYM - Brazil beat Spain, face Argentina in Quarters

LONDON (Olympics) - Brazil beat Spain 88-82 in the last Group B game of the Preliminary Round on Monday and will face neighbours Argentina in Wednesday's Quarter-Finals.

The Brazilians finished with a 4-1 mark to come in second in the pool behind Russia, the only team to have beaten them.

Up next for Ruben Magnano's side is Argentina, who lost 126-97 to the USA in the last Group A game.

Australia - after handing Russia their first defeat, 82-80, on Patrick Mills' buzzer-beating three-pointer - go up against the Americans in the Quarter-Finals.

The other Quarter-Finals will be all-European affairs as Russia take on Lithuania and Spain face France.

In Group's B other game of the day, Great Britain got their first win of the tournament, cruising past China 90-58.

Two-time European champions Spain had control of the game against Brazil in the first half, taking a 26-17 lead at the end of the first quarter.

They went into the locker room up 44-38 at the break thanks to the scoring punch provided by their trio of big men. Pau Gasol, his brother Marc and Serge Ibaka combined for 32 points.

Serge Scariolo's team looked like they would hold on for the win as they pushed their advantage back up to nine, 66-57, in the third quarter.

However, Brazil went on a furious run in the final frame as Leandro Barbosa scored 15 of his team-high 23 points over the last 10 minutes.

He hit back-to-back three-pointers with the second one giving Brazil their first lead, 75-73 with 4:15 left to play.

Spain tried to mount a late rally but when Anderson Varejao knocked the ball away from Pau Gasol, it resulted in a Barbosa lay-up for an 82-76 lead with two minutes to go and the play seemed to deflate the Spaniards.

"We came here to beat any team that played against us. Today we went out there to win and won," Varejao said afterwards.

Earlier in the day, Mills overcame a rough shooting performance to make the biggest one when it mattered the most as Australia surprised Russia.

Despite the win, the Boomers (3-2) finished fourth in Group B on the basis of having lost to Spain earlier in the Preliminary Round. However, they feel confident with the way they have played lately.

"We’ve got good momentum, we feel good about ourselves. We feel good about what we’re doing," said team captain Matt Nielsen.

"We’ve just beaten the unbeaten team in our pool and I don’t think we played that well. We have a bit of a game plan already and we feel confident with it. We’re not going out there thinking we’re going to lose you know, we’ll roll it out there."

For Russia, the defeat did not impact their standing at the top of the group to set up a meeting with Lithuania in the next round.

"We won a couple (of games on the buzzer) and we lost one. That’s why we’re going in the quarters in first place, we won more than we lost," said Russia coach David Blatt.

"I didn’t think we played particularly well. I think we suffered a bit from the fact that the game was without significance. We tried, we wanted to play hard and I think we did that. We weren’t really, really sharp but I think it’s natural."

The Australians were quickest out of the gates, jumping out to a 29-20 first quarter lead. This would be the biggest gap during the whole game.

The Russians used some balanced scoring to cut the deficit to 46-45 by halftime as Aleksey Shved and Sasha Kaun had nine each, while Timofey Mozgov and Semen Antonov had eight apiece.

Brett Brown's charges stretched their advantage back to five, 69-64, by the end of the third period and maintained it midway through the fourth, 77-72.

With his team down 79-73 with 3:13 left to play, Andrei Kirilenko spearheaded a 7-0 Russian run with a pair of free-throws and a three-point play. Vitaliy Fridzon capped it off when he hit two foul shots to edge them in front with four seconds left to play.

That was all the time Australia needed to set up Mills - who up to that point was 5/15 from the field and 2/9 from beyond the arc - for a good look at a three-pointer and he made good on it.

Great Britain's men's team earned the host country its first win in Olympic Basketball by beating China.

Kieron Achara had 16 points to lead six players in double figures. After a fairly even start for both teams, GB pulled away midway through the first quarter to built a 27-15 lead by the end of the period.

China fell behind as the game went on and Chris Finch's side got that elusive win which was just beyond them earlier in the tournament when they lost close games to two-time European champions Spain (79-78) and Americas powerhouse Brazil (67-62).

The game held another special significance as it brought to an end the international career of Great Britain big man Robert Archibald. He finished with eight points and nine rebounds.

"It was important for our entire programme to get a win to make a little bit of history," Finch said afterwards.

"Our guys were up for the challenge. Certainly it was what we needed and what the basketball community in general needed."

Luol Deng, the face of Team GB, expressed his hope that this win is a building block for basketball in the UK.

"I think this is the start of something special. The talent is there. Basketball will grow in the UK," he said.

For China, the defeat saw them bow out of the competition winless (0-5) and marked the first time since 2000 that they failed to make it out of the Preliminary Round at the Olympics.

"This whole experience has been tough on our team. We lost our confidence, lost our way," said coach Bob Donewald.

FIBA