South Korea, Qatar collect easy wins at Asiad men's basketball
1/12/2006 16:17
Defending champion South Korea and Qatar both collected easy wins
yesterday in the opening matches of the second-round competitions of the Asian
Games men's basketball tournament.
South Korea downed Bahrain 106-80 in its
Group A opener as Yang Dong-geun scored 20 points and Lee Kyu-sup added 16 to
lead five South Koreans in double scoring digits.
The South Koreans dominated
the inside game with the help of the 2.23-meter ex-NBA center Ha and power
forward Kim Joo-sung, who stands at 2.05 meters. Ha contributed 15 points and 15
rebounds and Kim finished with 14 points and nine rebounds.
The much smaller
Bahrainis, who have an average height of just 1.82 meters, had no choice but to
try to attack from outside. However,they just shot 26-for-78 from the
field.
South Korea jumped to an 8-0 start before improving to 29-19 at the
end of the first quarter. Bahrain fought bravely in the second to stay within
54-41, but the South Koreans steadily pulled away after the game resumed.
The
host Qatar also got off to a shining start, grabbing a 99- 59 victory over Group
A opponent Syria.
Ismail Yasseen Musa and Khalid Suliman Abdi combined for 22
points to lift Qatar up 48-33 at the half time. Syria put up some resistance in
the third quarter, only to see Qatar fight back even more strongly and surge
away in the fourth.
"Our guys came out with a lot of intensity and a lot of
efforts, " said Qatar's American head coach Joseph Stiebing. "I started a group
that probably won't start for the rest of the tournament, but to their credit,
they came out to play much better than I expected."
Musa finished with a
team-high 16 points with Malek Salem Abdulla and Daoud Mousa Daoud adding 14
apiece.
Earlier on Thursday, Jordan held off a strong late surge of Iran in
the fourth quarter for a 62-59 victory.
Trailing 49-42 after three quarters,
Iran staged a 12-2 run early in the fourth on back of aggressive defense to
overtake the lead 54-51 with less than four minutes remaining in the Group A
clash.
However, Jordan regained the advantage after Ayman Idais made two free
throws and a big three-pointer to make it 56-55 two minutes and 36 seconds from
the end and never looked back.
"We are a young team and it's our first game
at the games. The players were nervous early in the fourth and made many errors
against their press (defense), but I am happy we were able to keep calm and won
through," said Jordan head coach Mario Palma.
"It's also important that we
played very good defense today.
We held them to 13 points in the first
quarter, I am proud of my kids," Palma added.
Xinhua
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