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Brazil puts the brakes on Canada's lofty run

Canadians fall in semis as Barbosa pours in 22

Brazil 73 Canada 65

Leandro Barbosa is turning into a real pain for Canada's senior men's basketball team.

Two nights after blitzing Canada for 31 points, the Brazilian and Phoenix Suns guard went off for 22 last night as Brazil dumped Canada 73-65 in the semifinals of the FIBA Americas world qualification tournament in Puerto Rico.

Canada, by virtue of a Friday night win over the Dominican Republic, has already qualified for the world championships starting next August in Turkey, and the games this weekend are solely to determine seeding in the 24-country worlds.

Canada will face either Puerto Rico or Argentina today at 6:30 p.m. in the bronze medal game.

"(Saturday) was an example of our youth playing into the game," head coach Leo Rautins said on a conference call. "The guys were emotionally spent after (Friday) and qualifying for the world championships. It was very difficult for our players to recover."

Barbosa, who sat out a game Friday after torching the Canadians in the quarter-final round, made eight of 11 field goal attempts and two of six three-pointers while getting to the free throw line only once. Anderson Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers added 16 points.

"We actually, technically, played him (Barbosa) better than we did the first game," said Rautins.

Canada went into the second half trailing by a single point, but was outscored 26-13 in the third quarter thanks in large part to Barbosa.

Rautins used his bench liberally in the relatively meaningless game, shuttling all 12 members of the squad in and out. With almost half of the world championship field still to be determined – six teams will come out of this month's European qualification tournament and another four will be added by world governing body FIBA as wild cards in mid-December – trying to figure out seeds or preliminary-round groupings is impossible, giving Canada and the other FIBA Americas teams a chance to experiment this weekend with their spots already secured.

Joel Anthony of Montreal and the Miami Heat led Canada with 17 points, while Andy Rautins had 12 and Jermaine Bucknor 10.

Brazil, also with a spot in Turkey locked up, used its bench equally liberally, especially in the final five minutes of the 40-minute game.

"I guess in some ways we came down from that high level (Friday) and ended up being a little flat," said Anthony. "We were able to keep it close in the first half, but in the second half they were really able to pull away."