Taiwan proved no match for China in their second game in men’s basketball at the Asian Games, coming up short by one in a disheartening 59-58 loss at the Samsan World Gymnasium in Incheon, South Korea, yesterday afternoon to fall out of contention with a 0-2 record.
Lu Cheng-ju’s final shot attempt, with a China defender in his face and the clock winding down, never made it to the basket as the Taiwanese failed to top their Chinese counterparts in international competition for the first time in nearly two years to leave the nation disappointed.
Against a bigger and younger China squad and without the presence of their top inside threat, Quincy Davis, Taiwan fell behind right away in the must-win game as China took it strong to the hoop to claim a 17-10 lead after one quarter of play.
Photo: AFP
However, that did not intimidate Taiwan, as they held China to four points over the first five minutes of play in the second quarter in a 12-4 run to briefly take a 22-21 lead midway through the second.
After a 7-0 run by China late in the second to push their lead back to eight at the half, Taiwan looked to the experience of Lin Chih-chieh and Tien Lei in an evenly fought third quarter to keep the deficit under 10.
That was when head coach Hsu Chin-che decided to up his defensive effort a notch by placing tremendous pressure on China’s ball-handling. The strategy worked to wonder as it forced several turnovers against China in what ended up being a 10-2 run to bring the Islanders to within one of China with about five minutes remaining.
Even though Taiwan had their chances to skid ahead with their continued success on defense, their offense never managed to capitalize on it as China held their ground in the closing moments of the contest, despite committing two potentially fatal turnovers to stay ahead for good.
Failure to hit their free throws throughout the game left at least a half-dozen points on the table for Taiwan as they shot a dismal 13-for-23 from the charity stripe (compared with China’s 11-for-14) to make the loss even harder to take.
The lone highlight that Taiwan will have to bring home with them is their obvious improvement on defense, which exposed China’s questionable ball-handling in the backcourt.
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