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NBA: Preseason China tour toughens up Magic, Cavaliers

The Orlando Magic will benefit from their exhausting pre-season tour of China, which has seen them beat the Cleveland Cavaliers and Team China All-Stars on consecutive nights, coach Stan Van Gundy said yesterday.

The Magic edged the Cavaliers 90-86 in Shanghai before flying to Macau and easing to a comfortable 116-92 victory over a China team missing home-grown NBA players Yao Ming (姚明) and Yi Jianlian (易建聯).

Today, Orlando are back on court to face the Cavaliers again, in the final leg of a three-game promotional series organized by the NBA to foster China's rapidly growing love of basketball.

"It is a very tired group of players," Van Gundy said of his globe-trotting squad. "But I keep telling them they will not have a tougher road trip in the whole of the season ahead, so that's a good thing to be able to say. For them to have to focus when they're fatigued and to go through a little bit of adversity is one benefit of this tour, and should work for us when the season begins."

Looking ahead to today's clash, he said: "Of course we can win. The Cavaliers are a very good team who went last year where we want to go: to the NBA finals. But we beat them a few days ago in Shanghai and we can do it again."

Magic's superstar forward/center Dwight Howard stuck to the official line that the long-haul tour has not been an unsettling distraction just days ahead of the NBA season opening on Oct. 30.

"This China experience has helped us," he said after light training yesterday. "Playing with fatigue will help us in the long run and we have bonded as a team during the trip. We're confident about playing the Cavaliers again because in basketball, you've got to play with confidence. We're going to come out with intensity."

Cavaliers star LeBron James said today's sell-out game was not just about who came out on top.

"Preseason is about improving, so the match is not simply about winning. Win or lose doesn't matter in some ways, but it will be exciting for the fans to watch," James said. "China loves NBA basketball and other teams are likely to follow in our footsteps coming here."

Basketball has a vast and growing fan base in China, with estimates suggesting there are 300 million players in the country -- equal to the entire population of the US.
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