Yao Ming Mania! All about Chinese basketball star and NBA All-Star Yao Ming » Blog Archive » China loses big 4th quarter lead to Spain, then loses in OT
« Good recap of the fervor around the USA-China game
Video highlights from China-Spain game »

China loses big 4th quarter lead to Spain, then loses in OT

August 12th, 2008
by John

It was a heartbreaker for China on Tuesday, giving up a 14-point lead to Spain in the fourth quarter and losing in overtime 85-75.

Yao Ming picked up 2 fouls in the fourth quarter, played 30 minutes, and scored 11 points, grabbed 9 boards, dished 3 assists, and had 3 steals.

However, because Yao was double-teamed so much, he had to pass the ball from inside the paint, leading to most of his 4 turnovers. But that inside-out game helped the Chinese build their lead, as China hit 10-of-28 three-pointers for the game.

After Spain made their furious comeback to put the game into overtime, China’s chances of winning took a big blow when Yao fouled out after fouling Pau Gasol on a 3-point play.

Click here for Raymond’s photos from the game in the YaoMania! forum.

To read more about the game, click here. To see the boxscore, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 8:49 am and is filed under 2008 Beijing Olympics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Viewing 7 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    It's frustrating to be a Yao Ming fan. He's constantly veering between excellence and mediocrity. Unfortunately, in the game v.s. Spain he was mediocre. In this game he was probably more of a liability than an asset to his team.

    Sure, you can say he wasn't at 100%, but a lot of his mistakes were mental lapses, which is disappointing given his years of NBA experience. Double teams were the least of his problems.
    • ^
    • v
    At least Yao did dunked in Gasol's face with the spin move. But he didn't play good this game. He's still not 100% recovered, you can tell his conditioning sucked towards the end of the game.

    And I'm glad the Chinese crowd boo'ed Spain for posing that racist team picture.
    • ^
    • v
    Stop making excuses for Yao. He simply played terrible this game. The Chinese guards finally play a decent game and Yao plays bad. At least it was competitive. If we can win 3 out of the next 4 games, which we should, then we'll be good to go.
    • ^
    • v
    Yao's soft by nature. it won't change!!
    this is something that most of the YOFs don't take very well.
    its funny how they over credit Yao when his team wins, start blaming his teammates when his team lost, and worst yet, never admit Yao screwed up... the way the defend Yao is extremely laughable and entartaining to read
    • ^
    • v
    I live in Panama and stayed all night watching this game!
    I never say anything bad about Yao...but this game Gasol and the Spanish player abused him the whole game!!! I mean...Yao was abused and owned by Gasol!!! Gasol dunked on Yao like 3 or 4 times in this game!!!
    Has Yao learned anything in the NBA??? You dunk the damn ball when you are under the basket...why do you try to use the board???
    YAO...DUNK THE DAMN BALL!!!
    • ^
    • v
    I agree, Yao didn't play well, and he had a few costly turnovers down the stretch. And there was a rebound that bounced into his hand, and he couldn't hold on. Had he scored on that possession, China would've been up by four and therefore Marc Gasol's lucky shot wouldn't have tied the game.

    But it was a well-fought game, as I mentioned before, it's like a 2-15 seed match up in the NCAA tourney. Spain was heavily favored.

    I think Wang Zhizhi showed us flashes of his past, at the time the greatest basketball player in China's history. Wang can put the ball on the floor, and has a face-up game in addition to his vast collection of post moves. If only he knows how to box out and play defense! Yi needs to wake up.
    • ^
    • v
    first of all, congrads to China on a hard fought game.. even thou they lost. but hey, ppl are saying Spain is the favourite to win it all!! to have the lead with 1min left in the game along is amazing... the outside shooting was phenomenal most of the night, highlighted by Liu(thou he had 5 TOs), Wang (probably the best player for China), aswell as Zhu, who was on fire hitting on 5-7 from beyond the arc... definitely shows you the program is coming along. a heart breaking loss!!

    but did we see the game differently? yao wasn't double team that much at all. they were guarding him the way China guarded gasol... his TOs were just mental lapses.. same old same old.
    to defend Yao and come up with excuses for him we he plays bad
 
close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus