{"id":6629,"date":"2023-08-28T18:58:30","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T13:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=6629"},"modified":"2023-08-28T18:58:31","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T13:58:31","slug":"china-on-basketball-world-cup-brink-after-stunning-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/news\/china-on-basketball-world-cup-brink-after-stunning-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"China on Basketball World Cup brink after stunning loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

China head coach Aleksandar Djordjevic urged his players to show more “spirit”, with their Basketball World Cup hopes hanging by a thread after a stunning loss to South Sudan on Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China went down 89-69 to the World Cup debutants in Manila for their second defeat of the tournament, following an opening-day monstering by Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China must now beat Puerto Rico in their final group game on Wednesday and hope that other results go their way to avoid a first-round exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Djordjevic said his players would have to have more fire in their bellies and accused them of lacking “aggressiveness” against South Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In moments of difficulty, you have to find your spirit to respond on the floor,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It cannot be everything on paper — you have to find it. Those moments are making winning teams.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China, ranked 27th in the world, fell behind early and could find no way back against 62nd-ranked South Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They finished the first quarter trailing by eight points and fell short when it mattered, being outscored by 10 points in the final quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China’s Zhao Rui said he and his teammates “didn’t have the same desire as our opponents”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Djordjevic said South Sudan’s 15 successful three-point shots made the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Those are the killers, they’re just cutting your legs,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When you work so hard and you know what is coming and they shoot in your face and just make it happen.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American-born Li Kaier led China in scoring with 22 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Li, also known as Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Kyle Anderson, made headlines when he signed up for China’s national team after obtaining citizenship last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His performance against South Sudan marked an improvement on his tournament debut against Serbia, where he failed to score a single point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China are now in danger of missing out on the Paris Olympics qualification spot awarded to Asia’s highest-placed team at the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan beat Finland for their first win on Sunday night and could qualify for the next round if they beat Australia on Tuesday.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China head coach Aleksandar Djordjevic urged his players to show more “spirit”, with their Basketball World Cup hopes hanging by a thread after a stunning loss to South Sudan on Monday. China went down 89-69 to the World Cup debutants in Manila for their second defeat of the tournament, following an opening-day monstering by Serbia. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,81,2,53,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-china","category-news","category-sports","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}