Athens Olympic champions Argentina, in their fourth game of the Stankovic Continental Champions Cup, crushed China 86-66 on Saturday night.
Tang Zhengdong, in place of Yi Jianlian, played the starting center and Wang Shipeng, who played strongly on Friday, substituted Zhang Jinsong as starting small forward. Liu Wei's jumper opened the scoring with 9:15 left in the first quarter. Argentina extended their lead to 8 after China asked for their first timeout with 6:10 remaining. China's captain Li Nan, who did not play in the first 3 games due to a knee injury, came onto court with 3:36 left. China ended the first quarter 16-29. The Argentineans were 5-of-7 from the arc.
In the second quarter, Argentina continued their high shooting percentages both from the field and the arc. They sunk four 3-pointers in this period. A stunning dunk by #15 Kammerichs caused China to ask for a timeout with 4:00 left. But after that, China still could not close the deficit. Argentina led 47-35 after the half, and extended the gap to 21 points after 3 quarters.
Point guard Zhang Yunsong scored China's first fast break with 2:20 to go in the fourth quarter. And shortly afterward, swingman Sun Yue presented the second, and, the last. Argentina's fast-pace offense and man-to-man defense resulted in many unforced errors from China.
Li Nan was the only Chinese to score in double figures. He had team-high 12 points in 10-plus minutes.
"We had 21 turnovers in the game and I think it's the main reason for the lose." Li said after the game.
But China's head coach Jonas Kazlauskas believed that in addition to Argentina's fast movement and their high shooting percentage, the lose resulted from yesterday's brawl against Puerto Rico, which distracted the Chinese players' attention today.
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Li Xiao, July 30, 2005)
