Team China runs cold in World Cup warm

Release time：2024-06-03 17:52:13 Source：International Insight news portal

China's Li Kaier drives at the New Zealand defense during a warm-up match on Sunday in Hamburg, Germany. [Photo/Xinhua]

With just two weeks to go until the FIBA World Cup tips off, Team China's struggles in recent warm-up games have sounded alarm bells for their bid to earn Olympic qualification at the tournament.

Outgunned and outmuscled by more aggressive international opponents, the huge gap between the Chinese men's team and the world's elite contenders was all too apparent during a monthlong overseas training trip, which China finished with a 3-5 win-loss record.

The team's overall lack of competitiveness offensively and defensively, exposed by two crushing warm-up defeats to Italy and Germany, has resulted in a heavy reliance on naturalized star Kyle Anderson in each of the last three games he's played since officially joining the squad last month.

Known as a versatile playmaker in the NBA, the Minnesota Timberwolves forward had to switch to attack mode on Sunday to score a game-high 18 points to go with five rebounds and four steals as he helped Team China clinch a narrow 69-68 win over New Zealand in its final warm-up in Europe.

"I was hoping for a reaction. We gave Germany too much respect. Sometimes you must play with courage, and that's what happened today," Team China head coach Aleksandar Djordjevic said of the win, which followed a humiliating 107-58 rout by host Germany at the Supercup in Hamburg on Saturday.

Anderson, who averaged a career-high 4.9 assists in 69 games last season in the NBA for the Timberwolves, only registered two assists in total over his first three games for Team China, both on Sunday, while having to play over 26 minutes in an all-out effort to carry the team's offense almost single-handedly.

Defensively, it was his decisive steal of an inbound pass from a Tall Blacks player with 9.9 seconds left in the final quarter that secured China's comeback win by a one-point margin.

China's towering center Zhou Qi, an ex-NBA player, contributed 15 points, yet only grabbed four rebounds battling the physical Kiwis in the paint. The 2.17-meter former Houston Rockets center also missed five out of 14 free throws, shooting way below his average at just 64 percent on the line.

Bearing a heavier load on his shoulders than his role in the NBA, Anderson, who is eligible to represent Team China through his mother's family heritage in Guangdong province, believes he can develop better chemistry with his new teammates.

"Obviously we are in a stage where we are getting ready for a competition. It was a tough loss yesterday but just showing our resilience as a team coming back and playing hard today. I am really proud of our guys," said Anderson, who goes by the Chinese name Li Kaier on the international stage.

Asked what it takes to win on the international stage, Anderson said it's nothing new compared to what he does the best in the NBA.

"I think communicating, being organized and playing physically had a lot to do with our success today," said the 2.06-meter forward, who also contributed 9.4 points and 5.3 rebounds on average for Minnesota in his ninth NBA season last term.

"We just got together about two or three weeks ago and we are still working. We gotta make sure we play physical and we play together out there."

Team China will play two more warm-up games at home before flying to Manila for the World Cup campaign. Anderson stressed that efforts off the court can help gel the squad, too.

"Just form a bond with the guys off the court," Anderson, whose mother's grandfather was Chinese, said of his transition.

"We are together a lot so just making sure I talk to them off the court, start having conversations. I am trying to learn some Chinese and they try to learn some English. It's just fun working with them off the court. It's going to translate on the court."

Running out of time to fully instill his European style — which emphasizes size, spacing, passing and 3-point shooting — into the current Chinese squad, coach Djordjevic is expected to count more on Anderson's individual play, as well as the irreplaceable presence of big man Zhou to achieve the team's goal of finishing as the highest-ranked Asian team at the Cup.

Only the best Asian performer will secure the sole direct Olympic qualification berth for next year's Paris Games at the World Cup, which tips off on Aug 25.

Drawn with superpower Serbia, an unheralded but dangerous South Sudan squad, and fast-attacking Puerto Rico in Group B, Team China faces a tough challenge to make the knockout stage in Manila.

Should it fail to advance as one of the top two finishers in the group, Team China will have to battle against cross-group rivals, potentially the Philippines and Angola from Group A, in two classification games that will decide its final ranking.

"I hope we continue on this trajectory. I hope our precision improves, but we remain composed," Djordjevic said of the final tuneup before Team China's Cup opener against his home country Serbia on Aug 26.

"This victory means a lot. I'm proud of my team today. We expect physicality in the World Cup, and that's why we're here. It's been a valuable experience."

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