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China beat Canada in four-nation basketball tourney Li Nan notched 24 points to lead China to a 84-70 victory over Canada in a four-nation men's basketball tournament that opened here on Friday.
China's NBA Houston Rockets center Yao Ming missed his fourth straight warm-up game, as he is still recovering from an injury onhis right toe.
"We did a good job tonight," said Del Harris, head coach of theChinese national team. "We played most of the game very well, especially the inside with Batter and Yi Jianlian. It is a good opportunity for us to play everyone on the court."
Li Nan shot 9-12 from the field including 4-5 at three-points. Yi scored 15 points, including a pair of two-handed dunks on an no-look pass from Monk Batter in the second quarter. Chen Ke finished with 12, all through three-pointers.
Cheered on by a partisan crowd of some 4,000, the Chinese opened the game on 20-4 with Li collecting nine points.
But the Canadians held the Chinese to a 4-17 run at the last quarter when the visiting team catching up to 62-74.
"It is hard to be focused when we led by 20 points," said Harris. "Canada played very well tonight, they never gave up after they were far behind."
Juan Mendez led the Canadian team with 19 points. He shot 6-13from the field and hit six shows. The rest of the team shot only 24 points in the fist half. Jermain Bucknor was the only other Canadian player to finish in double figures, with 13 points.
"It is our first game. You can see we play better each quarter,"said Canada head coach Jay Triano after the match. "But China played better than. We hope they will fight to the final round ofOlympic Games."
In the other game on Friday, Croatia beat Brazil 82-62.
The tournament is the last part of China's preparations for 2004 Olympic Games August 13-29 in Athens.
China will play Brazil while Canada take Croatia, on Saturday. |
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