Swindon's Ben Fox tasted Paralympic semi-final defeat but still has a shot at wheelchair basketball bronze despite Great Britain’s 79-68 defeat to Japan.
Player-coach Gaz Choudhry starred again with 26 points and took his side into a 36-33 halftime lead but the hosts surged back in the second half.
ParalympicsGB won bronze in the sport at Rio 2016 and face Spain on Sunday with the chance of bringing home a medal for the fourth Games in five.
“We’re absolutely devastated,” said Choudhry.
“All credit to Japan - they beat us, we didn’t lose that game. They pressed us really well and they kept the intensity up.
“Our preparation hasn’t been ideal, everyone knows that. But there’s nothing specific we’ve done wrong, it’s just tournament play and we weren’t good enough today.
“This team is really special, really resilient and we’re going to need that when we go for the bronze medal.”
Britain set the pace to lead 23-15 after the first quarter. Abdi Jama lighting up the early stages with four field goals and enjoying his time on the left of the key.
Lee Manning’s size was tough for the hosts to handle but they eventually got to grips with the British offence and Ryuga Akaishi’s three-pointer highlighted a turnaround.
Having led by early in the second quarter, Britain lost momentum and Gregg Warburton’s sloppy turnover late in the half summed up the shift.
They led 36-33 at halftime but scoring dried up for Choudry’s side in the second half, outscored 19-12 by their opponents in the third and going five from 15 in the field.
Renshi Chokai and Hiroaki Kozai were the chief tormentors, with 18 and 17 points respectively as the hosts set up a grandstand gold medal final against USA.
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