Yao Ming had his best game since coming back from his injury, scoring 30 points on 10-of-11 shooting — both from the field and the free throw line — in an 85-68 victory over Angola.

Yao also was a force on the defensive end with 4 blocks, took care of the ball (only 1 turnover), dished 3 assists and had 7 rebounds.

(Click here for more photos from the game)

After the game, Donnie Nelson, an advisor for the Chinese team, said that Yao’s performance was due in part because Yao is finally rounding into shape.

He’s baaaaack!

China built an early 14-point lead in the second quarter, but then Angola made the adjustment to pressure the Chinese guards and play a zone defense. It worked as Angola cut the deficit to 2 points by halftime.

But China turned it back on in the second half and cruised to the victory. China’s 3-point shooting continues to work well for them, having hit 7-of-22 from behind the 3-point line.

Four other Chinese players scored in double figures, including Yi Jianlian (10 points, 11 rebounds), Liu Wei (10 points), Sun Yue (11), and Zhu Fangyu (10 points).

Next up for China is Germany on Saturday morning at 7:00am Central time where Yao goes up against Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman. If China wins that game, they will most likely accomplish their goal of advancing to the next round! That game is going to be huge!

Click here for the boxscore from the Angola game.

To watch a replay of the game online, click here (requires the installation of Microsoft’s Silverlight plug-in)

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 8:06 am and is filed under 2008 Beijing Olympics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.