CNH/RUS – Late spurt sees Russia seal place in second round

ANKARA (2010 FIBA World Championship) – Russia went on a 14-0 run late in the game to defeat China 89-80 and secure their place in the knockout stages of the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Down 75-73 with five minutes left, Russia turned the game in their favour for good with Evgeny Voronov getting a dunk off a China turnover before Sergey Monya buried a three-pointer – one of five on the day – and Sergey Bykov made a lay-up to give David Blatt’s team some breathing room at 80-75.

China went through a severe scoring drought and fell behind 87-75, only recovering their shooting touch when the game was truly out of their reach.

Bob Donewald’s charges now stand on the verge of being eliminated.

The game was close until Russia went on their decisive charge: there were 18 lead changes and the score was tied on 10 occasions.

China went up 14-9 on a pair of free-throws by 16-year-old Ailun Guo. Russia answered with six straight points but China replied with a 7-0 spurt to end the first quarter up 21-15.

Shulong Yu buried a three-pointer before Liu Wei made a pair of free-throws and Yu made a jumper in the dying seconds.

Russia rallied back in the second quarter with Anton Ponkrashov and Sergey Monya knocking down three-pointers to cut the deficit. They tied the score at 27 on a pair of free-throws by the former and when the latter made back-to-back long bombs, they had their biggest lead up until then, 36-29, with 4:29 left in the first half.

Sun Yue scored five points in a row and Wang Shipeng connected from beyond the arc to get within 38-37. Wang Zhizhi made two lay-ups, the second one with 24 seconds to go before the break that put his team up 43-40.

Russia were in the ascendancy in the first part of the third quarter, outscoring their opponents 17-9 to go in front 57-52 on Sergey Bykov’s lay-up.

Yue then scored five points in a row and the teams went back and forth for the rest of the period with Russia taking a 63-62 advantage into the final frame.

Andrey Vorontsevich and Kaun extended Russia’s lead to 68-62 before Wang Shipeng knocked a three-pointer for 68-65 with 7:24 to go.

Vorontsevich and Yue traded baskets and the game was tied at 73 with five minutes remaining.

Shipeng knocked down a pair of free-throws to put China back in front, but that would be their last lead as Russia then went on their run to put the game beyond their opponents.

You can watch the full highlights of this game on FIBATV.Com.

Quotes:

David Blatt (Russia head coach): “I have 12 great young guys. Whether we play good or bad we always play hard. We’re a bunch of blue collar workers who try like hell and play hard defense and never give up. You saw that today. China played hard. We could have lost by nine or 10 points and still qualified but we kept our foot on the gas pedal and kept pushing. I take my hat off to the players on the team. Playing without any big stars, we play basketball and we played a beautiful game today.”

Evgeny Voronov (Russia forward): “Thanks to everyone who believes in us. Today we had a very good game against a very good team. This win was very important because we knew it would mean we get to go to Istanbul. We were fighting like a real team, everyone played for each other and supported each other. Wes showed our team spirit today. We really appreciate the support of our fans who have come here and believe in us all the time.”

Bob Donewald Jr (China head coach): “They played great, they’re well coached by one of the best coaches in the world. They had an outstanding game plan and pulled away down the stretch. We had the lead and ran out of gas. We made a few mistakes and before you know it, it was over.”

FIBA

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