By Elizabeth Hudson BBC Sport in Athens

Day five photos Latest results

Great Britain clinched a place in the men's basketball quarter-finals at the Paralympics with a thrilling 66-57 win over Brazil.

Dave Titmuss' team struggled early on, with Irio Nunes hitting 17 points as Brazil took a 31-24 lead at the break.

But GB combined excellent defence with scores from Jon Pollock and Sinclair Thomas to take a 52-42 advantage.

Brazil steadily closed the gap in the final quarter but GB managed to pull clear again to reach the last eight.

It was a disappointing first half by GB but coach Dave Titmuss made some crucial changes to his second half line-up, bringing in captain Andy Blake and Simon Munn and the substitutions seemed to work wonders.

The taller line-up stifled Brazil and freed up Jon Pollock to claim some crucial scores and the Italy-based player finished as top scorer on 23 points.

It was like pulling teeth out there Great Britain coach Dave Titmuss Dan Johnson on GB's victory

Despite being 10 points down at the start of the final quarter, Brazil continued to fight and Nilton Pensoa cut the lead to four points (59-55) with just over a minute and a half to go.

The Brazilians were forced to foul GB in an effort to stop the clock and Pollock, Blake and Ade Adepitan all made crucial late scores to make the result safe.

But coach Titmuss knew his side had been in a real battle to reach the last eight and make amends for missing out on bronze four years ago.

"It was like pulling teeth out there," he said.

"But it shows special character to come back against a bigger offensively orientated team.

"In the unlikely event that we had come out very strongly against Brazil the way we did against the French, it wouldn't have given us the experience of having to come back from behind and fight for victory.

"Given all of the hard work we have put in over the last few years since Sydney, the thoughts of only playing for 9th-12th place were not pleasant ones."

GB top scorer Jon Pollock was also relieved to have got the win.

"This was a huge game for us and our third-quarter performance shows that games can be won and lost in the space of 10 minutes.

"We are still aiming for a medal and I still believe that we can reach the final," he said.