CUB/KOR – Cuba confidence grows with victory over Korea
BEIJING (Olympic Test Event) - Cuba capped their 2008 Beijing Basketball Test Event with another win on Thursday as Korea suffered another abject performance on the boards. Alberto Zabala’s Cubans, which finished runners-up at last summer’s FIBA Americas Championship to the United States, pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 78-66 victory ...
BEIJING (Olympic Test Event) - Cuba capped their 2008 Beijing Basketball Test Event with another win on Thursday as Korea suffered another abject performance on the boards.
Alberto Zabala’s Cubans, which finished runners-up at last summer’s FIBA Americas Championship to the United States, pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 78-66 victory – their third here in Beijing.
Yayma Boulet Peillon and Yakelyn Plutin each had impressive double-doubles in points and rebounds for the Cubans.
The former finished with 18 points and 17 boards, while the latter scored a game-high 24 and corralled 12 rebounds.
Cuba point guard Isneidis Casanova, who played more than 28 minutes, said: “I think the Korean team is a very good team in the world and I think our team had a very good performance, especially on defense, particularly guarding their three-pointer shooters. And we also did a very good job rebounding.
Cuba out-rebounded Korea 50-29 while the Asian champions made nine of 24 shots from behind the arc.
Korea have suffered in all of their games because of their inability to rebound.
Kim Jung Eun, the Korea center, said: “Today’s game was our last game of this tournament and I felt very sorry for the result. I don’t think we had a very good performance today.
“There are three months until the Olympics and I think one major area in which we will improve in will be our fast-break, but we also need to improve our rebounding and our stamina.”
Zabala likes the way his team is coming together ahead of Madrid where they will face Belarus and Chinese Taipei. Then, if they finish in the top two of their group, the Cubans will take on either Spain or Brazil in the quarter-finals.
“We’re always very confident,” Zabala said to FIBA.Com.
“I think the qualification round will be very big challenge for us, but I don’t think it’s not impossible.
“We’ve had very important preparation tournaments.
“Earlier this year, we played against Brazil, now we are here in China and we will also play games in Europe before Madrid. Hopefully, we will end up back here in Beijing.”
FIBA