US SWEEP INTO QUARTERS

Led by 20 points from Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, who tallied 11-straight points in the third quarter and shot 6-of-9 from 3-point for the game, the USA advanced into the 2014 FIBA World Cup quarterfinals with a dominating 86-63 win over Mexico on Saturday in Barcelona.

The USA will play Slovenia which advanced after beating Dominican Republic 71-61, for a place in the semis.

“Overall I was pleased because it’s our sixth game in eight days, and we had this early game to get going,” said USA coach Mike Krzyzewski. “I thought we continued to play good defense until the last few minutes when they just threw in two or three threes; they’d only had one three. So our defense on the three was terrific and especially on (Hector) Hernandez, who is their best 3-point shooter, and he didn’t score. Those are things we game planned for, and our guys responded.”

Curry’s Golden State teammate Klay Thompson finished with 15 points with James Harden adding 12.

“Another great performance,” said Curry, who also dished out four of the USA’s 18 assists. “We came out better in the first five minutes of the game with energy and started pretty well. Our defense is still the thing that is keeping us going, putting pressure on our opponents to take them out of their offense and just force the tempo, and we did that at the start of the game and it kind of carried over throughout the rest of the game.”

The USA jumped ahead 13-2 to start the game, but Mexico responded with a 7-0 run to cut it to 13-9 at 4:21. Curry hit a 3-pointer to end Mexico’s spurt, and after one more score from Mexico, the USA closed with seven straight points to lead 23-13 at the first break.

The USA hit three 3-pointers in the second quarter, including two from Harden, who scored 10 points in the period, to help outscore Mexico 19-14 and take a 42-27 lead at halftime.

At the midway point, the USA actually was shooting better from 3-point (. 429) than from inside the arc (.400), and it when on to finish the game shooting 46.6 percent from the field (34-73 FGs) and 44.8 percent from 3-point (13-29 3pt FGs).

The USA’s 15-point, 42-27 halftime lead quickly ballooned to 27 points (57-30) after a score from Kyrie Irving and Curry’s 11 straight points from 7:12 to 4:15. DeMarcus Cousin’s had the next nine points for the USA, and then a score by Rudy Gay helped the USA take a commanding 66-38 lead at the third-quarter break.

“Our defense – that’s going to win us games,” Harden said. “We’re so talented offensively. Defensively if we can just click and make sure we’re on the same page for the most part, we’ll be pretty good.”

As the USA already had secured the win, Mexico outscored the USA 25-20 in the fourth quarter to bring the game to its 86-63 final.

While the USA’s scoring was spread across nine players and five in double-figures, Mexico’s NBA free agent Gustavo Ayon scored 25 of his team’s points.

European champions France ground out a 69-64 victory over Croatia, despite 27 points from Nets-bound forward Bojan Bogdanovic, to advance to a showdown with Spain who pulled out a second half masterclass to thrash Senegal.