Gabriel Deck's Argentina hold off Team USA, will face Brazil in the AmeriCup final / News - Basketnews.com

Led by a stunning Gabriel Deck, Argentina stunned Team USA and qualified for the FIBA AmeriCup final game, where they will face Brazil.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Gabriel Deck's impressive performance paved Argentina to the AmeriCup semi-finals. Pablo Prigioni's team downed Team USA 82-73 (20-17, 20-16, 18-19, 24-21).

Deck scored 30 points and grabbed 7 rebounds, Nicolas Laprovittola added 18 in the rematch of the gold-medal game from the most recent AmeriCup tournament in 2017, a game in which the U.S. prevailed.

Not this time, not after Argentina outscored the Americans (a team composed of players who have been in the G League or playing overseas) 17-7 in the final five minutes. Three and a half minutes before the end of the match, the teams were separated by just one point (69-68), but then the Argentines got off to a partial score of 10-2 to advance to the final.

Norris Cole's layup with 5:12 left put the U.S. up 66-65, but that would be the last lead for the Americans.

"This is a good learning experience for our team," Cole said. "And we’ll learn from it."

Cole led the U.S. with 18 points and Zylan Cheatham added 10 for the Americans, who got to the line only 10 times, compared with 29 for Argentina.

"For sure, a lot of credit to Argentina and coach Pablo Prigioni," Team USA coach Alex Jensen said. "It’s a good team, veteran team, a lot of good players, a lot of different weapons and they did a great job in the end. We made our runs. They did a good job taking it up another notch and we lost our patience."

Facundo Campazzo scored 10 for Argentina, which lost the 2017 AmeriCup final to the U.S. 81-76. Argentina led for 33 of the game's 40 minutes.

The Argentines will face the home team of Brazil in the final, who defeated Canada in their semi-final. The match will take place on Sunday at 01:40 CEST.

Argentina: Gabriel Deck 30 (9/12 2PT SHOTS, 12/13 FT), Nicolas Laprovittola 18, Facundo Campazzo 10 (7 assists).

USA: Norris Cole 18 (5/5 FG), Zylan Cheatham 10 (8 rebounds), Craig Sword 9.

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