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China Men's Basketball Lost to Australia, Women's Win
China men's basketball team failed to live up to the expectation as they were crashed by wild-card Australia, while the women's team edged off Australia on Saturday in the 3rd East Asian Games.
Wang Zhizhi and Yao Ming had done their jobs, but failed to lead the highly-expected Chinese men's team to victory as Australia crushed China 105-77.
The solo centers Wang, the Dallas Mavericks player who joined the national team on Friday, and Yao had 15 and 18 points apiece with the rest of the Chinese squad contributing little teamwork from outside.
Their reckless dribbles awarded 15 steals to the Australians, who finished fourth in the Sydney Olympic Games, while the wild-card team found it easy to stop China's offence when the Chinese committed 24 turnovers.
Australian Guard Brett Maher had the game-high 25 points while Darryl McDonald delivered 10 assists when the Australians shot 50% in the field to China's below 36%.
In the women's counterpart, the modest Chinese girls used a second-half surge-up to beat Australia 79-74.
China, who lost 67-55 in a warm-up game to Australia on Friday,shot poorly and lost control of on the board while Australia led as much as 12 points in the first half. The Australian opened a 9-
point lead to enter the second half at 44-35.
The third quarter saw China slowly claw back with their defence suffocating the loosing Australians before they had the better of the game down the stretch.
In others men's games, Kazakhstan surprised South Korea 121-92 in the opening match while Japan slew Mongolia 129-68.
In the women's competition, Japan defeated Kazakhstan 112-89 while South Korea took a comeback win over Chinese Taipei, 77-72.
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