Chinese national basketball team beat the Australian Melbourne
Tigers 84-78 in Macao Wednesday night in a basketball challenge for
the 2008 Beijing Olympics training tour.
Yao Ming the team's soul and NBA All-Star center for Houston
Rockets, top scored both sides with 25 points in his second match
since his returning from honeymoon.
Yao dominated the painted area in offensive side by making 11
out of his 17 shots and grabbed eight rebounds.
But the 2.26-meter giant struggled at the penalty line Wednesday
with only a 50 percent out of six free throws.
Yi Jianlian, the No. 6 rookie picked by the Milwaukee Bucks in
this year's NBA draft, added 20 points to help China get over the
Melbourne Tigers comfortably.
Wang Zhizhi, a former NBA player, returned to the team Wednesday
from fever and tallied 11 points.
It is the first time for China to have the NBA trio to play for
the same match this year but they did not get much help from their
back court 3-point shooters, who made 5 out of 18 attempts.
Guard Wang Shipeng contributed eight points while shooter Zhu
Fangyu and guard Liu Wei both added seven points apiece. Veteran
point guard Li Nan got five points and teenager forward Zhou Peng
offer one point from the free throws.
Chris Anstey topsored for the Australians by getting 15
points.
"China was a good and talented team with Yao and Yi," head coach
of Melbourne Tigers Alan Westover said at a post-match press
conference, "but I'm happy with the efforts made by my boys."
"Our strategy is to bring Yao away from the basket and we hit a
couple of good shots during the second half," he said.
"It's good for us to be here to play with China 's national team
in our pre-season training for the National Basketball League
(NBL)," he said, "we are hopeful that it is also good for China and
wish them good luck in Beijing."
The Melbourne Tigers have won three NBL championships in
Australia and have also finished the second place in the NBL finals
for three times.
China's head coach Jonas Kazlauskas was still absent in
Europe.
Executive coach of China Guo Shiqiang told the post-match press
conference that he was glad with the results, particularly on the
offensive side.
"This is an important game for us and the Australians gave us a
lot difficulty with their defense," Guo said, "they were
well-prepared and planned accordingly."
"Yao's performance is beyond my expectations since he was not at
his best level just days from resuming training," he said, "Yao had
created a lot of chances outside the 3-point range but our guard
did not catch those chances and missed a couple of shots."
(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2007)