Day Four Round-Up: Four teams remain unbeaten; Lebanon down Qatar

TIANJIN (FIBA Asia Championship) - Lebanon needed a fourth quarter three-pointer advantage to defeat Qatar 73-63 in a pivotal Group F eight-final round game on Monday.

The win took Lebanon to a 2-1 win-loss record and enhanced chances of finishing third in the Group. Qatar slumped to 1-2.

The teams playing the eight-final round have carried forward the results against fellow qualifiers from their preliminary round Groups.

In other Group F games, China and Jordan extended their winning run.

China overcame midgame loss of focus to beat United Arab Emirates 82-59 and Jordan fought a lack of rhythm to beat an equally off-colour Kazakhstan 98-80.

Both China and Jordan have a 3-0 win-loss record, while both Kazakhstan and UAE are 0-3.

In Group E, Iran and Korea continued their unbeaten spree heading towards their Wednesday’s clash, in all probability a play off for the top place in the Group.

Iran demolished Japan 101-71 after Korea had opened the day’s proceedings with a clinical 78-58 decimation of Kuwait.

Iran and Korea both have a 3-0 record, while Kuwait and Japan are both 0-3.

Philippines rode on James Yap’s superb shooting show in the third quarter, supported by some water-tight defence, to beat Chinese Taipei 77-70.

Philippines have a 2-1 record in the Group as against Chinese Taipei’s 1-2.

Group E

James Yap’s superb show in the third quarter, supported by some tight defence was highlight of Philippines’ victory against Chinese Taipei.

Yap returned a 55.55% field record (5/9), including a staggering 4/6 in three-pointers – as Philippines outscored Taipei 29-19 in the third quarter – and scored 15 of his game-high 23 points in the third quarter.

Willie Miller Jr had an all-round consistent shooting performance and scored 17 points for Philippines, converting all his five three-pointer attempts.

Tseng Wen-Ting, who went on to finish as Taipei’s leading scorer with 21 points, had only three to add in the third quarter to his eight first half points.

Tseng fought back gallantly in the fourth quarter reeling in 10 points, but by then Philippines had hot cruise mode.

For both Korea and Iran, their tall centres played crucial roles to seal the issue early in the game.

Korea coach Hur Jae inducted his Ha Seung-jin in the starting line-up and as is his wont the 221-cm centre influenced the proceedings right from the word go.

Ha was benched in the latter part of the first quarter but did the damage drawing three fouls, collecting three rebounds and scoring four points all in the first quarter.

Yang Donggeun fired in three three-pointers – out of his game’s 11 points – as Korea reeled off a 14-0 scoring spree in the closing minutes of the first quarter.

Kuwait were left playing catch up after that.

Yang Heejong led Korea’s scoring with a team-high 16 points

Shayee Saeed’s 18 points was the highest for Kuwait – and the game.

Memphis Grizzlies centre Hamed EHadadi struck a purple patch early in the game and defending champions Iran wore Japan out.

The 218-cm centre returned a mind-boggling 80% field record, to score 12 points in the first quarter. He further collected four of his game-high 15 rebounds in the first quarter and Iran raced away after that.

EHadadi eventually finished with 22 points sharing the scoring honours for the game with Samad Nikkah.

Samad, who scored eight points in that first quarter flurry, was as crafty as every in a 7/11 field record, including converting two of his four three-pointer attempts. Samad also effected a game-high six assists.

Mahdi Kamrani had 16 points.

Kosuke Takeuchi almost ploughed a lone furrow for Japan – with 19 points and six boards.

Group F

That Lebanon and Qatar were tied at 51 going into the final quarter reflected the evenness of the exchanges of encounter.

Omar El Turk fired in back-to-back three-pointers to open Lebanon’s scoring in the fourth quarter. Fadi El Khatib and Jackson Vroman combined to a nicety with the latter capping a fast breakaway to split the successes in three-pointers from Mat Freije and Rony Fahed.

Lebanon, thus forged ahead 65-59 – as Qatar were confined to scoring in twos – in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, and grimly hung on

Ironically, Qatar had carried a better three-pointer record – 50% (4/8) as against Lebanon’s 31% (5/16) – in the first three quarters.

And in the fourth quarter Lebanon overshadowed their rivals with a 4/9 record as Qatar failed in all their nine attempts.

Mat Freije led the scoring for the game with 15 points, five of them in the fourth quarter.

Fadi El Khatib shot four points in the final ten minutes to finish with 13.

Saad Ali was the leading scorer for Qatar with 14 points, all of them coming in the first three quarters.

Yi Jianlian’s early burst helped China brush off the “later loss in focus.”

Yi scored 14 of his game’s 18 points in the first quarter to China a 27-10 lead before
UAE fought back rather gallantly in the next two quarters – matching their much fancied rivals 16-16 in the second and outscoring China 21-15 in the third.

But China, whose dominance was never in doubt, took the game further away with a 12-4 blitz in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter.

Sun Yue scored 11 of his 13 points for the game in the fourth quarter. Du Feng also had 13.

Rashed Alzaabi was the highest scorer for UAE with 20 points.

Jordan certainly did not show the fluency that took them to three successive wins in the preliminary round, but found their saviours in Rasheim Wright and Sam Daghlas.

Rasheim Wright shot a game-high 29 points, with a staggering 80% in field attempts (12/15) as Jordan took control of the proceedings midway through the first quarter and scraped through the rest of the way.

Sam Daghlas had a team-high five assists to add value to his 17 points.

Zaid Abbas too effected five assists and pulled down four rebounds to go with his 21 points.

Anton Ponomarev, as usual, was the leading scorer for Kazakhstan with 24 points. And Alexander Tyutyunik scored as many points.

13-16 Classification

Middle Asian nations India and Uzbekistan set up a clash for the 13th place winning their classification round games without much ado.

India overpowered Indonesia 91-52 and Uzbekistan rolled past another Middle Asian qualifiers Sri Lanka 90-47.

Indonesia play Sri Lanka, with the losers taking the wooden spoon.

India who finished 15th in the 2007 FIBA Asia Championship at Tokushima are thus assured of bettering that finish when they face Uzbekistan in the 13th place play-off on the morrow.

Jagdeep Singh was the leader of the Indian cause with 18 points and Vishesh Bhriguvanshi contributed 17 points.

Vineeth Revi Mathew shot an incredible 86% (6/7) in the field for his 14 points.

Kelly Purwanto, Ary Chandra and Nyoman Indrawan scored 10 points each for Indonesia.

Sri Lanka managed to remain close in the first ten minutes in the all-Middle Asia clash.

But Uzbekistan, pulled away in the second quarter and with a 32-12 scoring advantage virtually sealed the issue.

Hurmatjon Muraliev led the scoring for the Uzbeks with a game-high 27 points.

Aleksandar Kozlov had 22 points.

For Sri Lanka, Sidath Senanayake was the highest scorer with nine points.

S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia