Fuente: © FIBA (Federación Internacional de Basket)
http://www.fiba.com

FIBA: FIBA Asia - China defend women's title

/noticias.info/ DOHA (Asian Games Women) - Miao Lijie scored 20 points and Chen Nan and Chen Xiaoli each added a double-double as China blasted Chinese Taipei 90-59 to defend their title at the Asian Games and collect their fourth gold medal.

Appearing in their seventh final in nine Asian Games events, China shook off a slow start to pull away and finish with a perfect record through four games in Qatar.
This year's title adds to those won in 2002, 1986 and 1982.

Chinese Taipei just didn't have the talent to stay with China but won their first silver medal after taking bronze in 2002 and 1990.

Thomas Maher's Chinese pulled ahead 12-4 but struggled with their interior defence against Taipei, who trailed just 24-21 after one period as Lin Hui Mei scored 13 points.

China led just 29-26 four minutes into the second period when they picked up their defence. And Chen Nan and Maio provided plenty of offence, scoring 12 points in a final 17-7 push to lead 46-33 at half-time

The Chinese didn't let up at all in the third quarter as they out-scored Taipei 26-10, including Miao's half-court bomb at the third quarter buzzer for a 74-33 lead.

Chinese Taipei would not get closer than 27 points the rest of the way and China pushed the lead to 37 late in the game.

Chen Xiaoli had 21 points and 12 rebounds while Chen Nan registered 19 points and 10 rebounds for the winners, who also got 13 points off the bench from Sui Feifei.

Maher was pleased with the performance though a bit frustrated with the first quarter.

"We naturally focused on our offence in the first quarter and got lazy on defence. We knew they like to run and when they scored 21 points in the first quarter that was 80 points over the game and we couldn't let them have that," the Australian said.

"This is part of the journey to (the 2008 Olympics in) Beijing. If we had a mis-step here it would have been a total failure. We knew that we could beat all of these teams. We're not ready to get an Olympic medal yet. But we have a chance."

Lin Hui Mei led Chinese Taipei with 18 points. Forward Chiang Feng Chun came into the game averaging 20.3 points and 7.7 but could never find her rhythm as Chen Nan held her to just four points and two rebounds.

In the bronze medal match, Ryoko Utsumi had 24 points and Yuko Oga collected 15 points, nine rebounds and six assists as Japan beat South Korea 74-70.

With the game tied 70-70 with 1:01 remaining, Yuka Watanabe drained a three-pointer and Oga made a free throw with 34 seconds to ice the game.

Japanese captain Noriko Sakakibara, who had 10 points and six assists, blocked Beon Yeon Ha's three-point attempt with 26 seconds left and forced Beon into another tough, contested long bomb with nine seconds left.

Beon paced South Korea with 22 points, while Kim Kwe Ryong had 21 points in a losing effort.

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