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CHN / LIB – Chinese campaign back on rails
TEHRAN (FIBA Asia U18 Championship for Men): Defending champions China bounced back into contention with customary panache routing last edition’s bronze medalists Lebanon 101-74 in a Group I Quarterfinal round game on Monday.
China on Sunday had forfeited the opening game against Syria, and thus suffered a 0-20 setback. In the process they lost even the single point that would have come with a defeat. China’s task for Monday, thus was task cut out. They needed to win, and win by a big margin.
Li Chunjiang’s boys played well aware of the situation and achieved both their targets.
They next take on Kazakhstan on Tuesday, and obviously need a big win in that game to stay ahead in the goal average calculations.
“We have left what happened behind us,” Li Chunjiang said.
“We are now looking at playing all our remaining to our full potential. Of course we want to win all the games,” he said.
“We came here to retain our title, let’s not forget that,” he added.
Li Xiaxou, the lone remaining player from the team which won the title in Urumqi two years ago, led the Chinese assault with 27 points, and a game-high 10 rebounds. He also had three blocks, besides two assists and as many steals.
Dong Hanlin took Wang Zheng’s place in the starting five and the 207cm forward justified his coach’s faith returning a 8/10 record on the floor for 18 points. Dong also collected seven rebounds.
Ran Sui and Zhao Hongwei took care of the perimeter shooting with three successes each from behind the arc.
China made their intentions clear against Lebanon by applying full court press right from the word go.
The urgency in their approach left the Chinese a little error-prone in the early stages and they managed only a 29-21 advantage.
But early in the second quarter, China tightened the screws on the defense keeping Lebanon away from scoring for almost five minutes.
Lebanese spearhead Ahmad Ibrahim who had a game high 34 points was shut out completely. He played all of the second quarter, but scored no points. China, as a result led 48-34 going into the changing rooms.
And the lead only kept swelling in the second half before China wrapped up a 27-point win.
“Our job is to keep winning. Forget the rest,” Li Chunjiang said about the permutations and combinations that are doing the rounds about the semifinalists from this group.
Where China flowered Lebanon withered.
“I think last night’s game took a toll on us,” Lebanon coach Rizkallah Zaloum said.
Lebanon had lost to Kazakhstan in second Overtime on Sunday.
“It was as if China had played lesser and we had played more,” Zaloum joked talking about the manner in which the games ended on Sunday.
Lebanon play Syria on Tuesday.
Scores
China 101 (Li Xiaxou 27, Dong Hanlin 18, Zhao Hongwei 16, Ran Sui 12, Cao Fei 11) bt Lebanon 74 (Ahmad Ibrahim 34). Quarterwise Scores: 29-21, 48-34, 70-52.
S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia
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