This article posted today on ESPN.com, which is pretty funny. It reveals more about the charging call I mentioned earlier this morning (see post below) during the China-USA game when Shane Battier drew a charge on Yao. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

“I don’t know if there are too many people alive who can say they took a charge from Shaq and Yao and got the calls. I’m not very smart sometimes,” joked Battier, who remembered taking a charge against O’Neal during the first home game of his rookie season with the Grizzlies. “It was the same situation like tonight. Once Yao got the ball at halfcourt I knew I was going to have to take a charge. That was the play, and it’s a lot tougher when you have a few seconds to think about it.”

Yao wasn’t in a very chatty mood after the game, but he did pat Battier, his new teammate with the Houston Rockets, on the shoulder at he walked past him in the mixed zone. “You didn’t know that about me?” Yao said when I complimented his breakaway ballhandling.

Here’s a good story from the Houston Chronicle about Yao and Battier on that play.

Here is also a link to a short NBA.com video of Yao being interviewed after the game. Disregard the short commercial beforehand.

Make sure to scroll down near the bottom to read the little blurb on Yi Jianlian‘s supposed age, too.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2006 at 12:23 pm and is filed under 2006 World Championships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.