Sao Paulo has advanced to the semifinal stage of the 2022 FIBA Basketball Champions League championship tournament, holding off Real Esteli 75-71 Wednesday at Carioca Arena 1 in Rio de Janeiro.
Sao Paulo took control of the game in the first quarter and started to pull away, thanks to a flurry of three-pointers by Marquinhos Sosa, Corderro Bennet, Bruno Caboclo, and Elio Corazza. Sousa finished with 23 points to lead all scorers. An alley-oop layup by Tyrone Curnell gave Sao Paulo a 15-point lead which they took into halftime, 42-27. Sao Paulo outscored Esteli from the three-point line 27-0 in the first half.
Sao Paulo stretched it to 16 before Esteli made a run with Caboclo on the bench in foul trouble for Sao Paulo. Esteli got to within seven at the 3:52 mark, but a three-pointer by Isaac Goncalves with 2:33 to play in the third got the lead back to 12.
Esteli got back to within six twice in the fourth, on the strength of Ismael Romero’s 21 points and 18 rebounds. But a Sousa layup and free throw, followed by a Tyrone Curnell layup ballooned the lead back to a dozen with 1:53 to play.
Esteli would not go down easy, however. A layup by Jezreel de Jesus with :45 left got it back down to six yet again, but his floater as time expired to make it a 4-point deficit was too little, too late. De Jesus finished with 21 points.
Caboclo and Curnell each had 14 points for Sao Paulo, while Bennet had 11. Caboclo added 9 rebounds. Renaldo Balkman added 10 points and 8 rebounds for Esteli.
