Whiew!

Great game for Yao and China. Glad to see Yao getting back into form. I was especially happy to see him dominate Chris Kaman, who for some reason seems to consider himself a Yao-stopper. Well, Chris, Yao said it once before and we’ll help him say it again, “You can’t f#$@!%! stop meeee!!!”

Interesting to see how Kaman looked sheepish and completely avoided eye contact with Yao when they shook hands after the game.

It was also great to see Yao putting his arm around Wang Zhizhi’s shoulders as both of them looked on and smiled towards the final seconds of the victory. In Yao’s bio, he had sounded a bit resentful that Wang never deigned to speak to him when he (Yao) first joined the national team many years ago. So good to see these giants of Chinese basketball become real buddies.

By the way, what a slugfest international games are compared to what you see in the NBA. There were so many times in the game when my jaw dropped looking at what the refs were allowing out there. No wonder international players come into the NBA and immediately become fouling machines until they learn.

I love Liu Wei, been a fan of Shanghai Sharks from way back. But his style is not suitable for team play. He dribbles too much, yet he’s turnover prone. All my American friends’ first impression on him is that he’s a gunner. Liu Wei takes shots that make you scream “What the f**K are you doing?” Fortunately for us, my reactions to his shots lately were more like “What are you doing? Oh, ok. thank God it went in.”

I understand Coach Kaunas sticking with Liu Wei because at this point, even though Chen Jianghua is more talented, but Liu Wei has a little more control. But I thought Sun Yue should’ve been used more at the point as well. That Rubio kid would never have been able to strip Sun Yue without fouling.

From the way it looks, if we beat Greece, we play Argentina. If we lose, we play Lithuania. I’ll take my chances with Lithuania.

In the CNT they have a terrific inside presence (WZZ, Yi, Yao) and forgettable guards, dunno why. Anyone could explain the crappiness of CNT’s backcourt? Something wrong in the training at the youth level?

Anyway, Yi looks much more fired up then in the previous games, Yao must have given him a prep talk or he has kicked his behind - or both

Anyway, it seems Yao has expanded his outside repertoire with another three!
I hope Yao can bring this swagger to the Rockets!

I hope Dirk get traded out of Dallas, so I can enjoy the Rockets wipping Dallas more, haha.