China beats Lithuania to reach final in basketball friendly

Chinese Olympic team of men's basketball came from a 12-point behind to beat Lithuania 56-54 here on Friday and reaches the final of the 2015 Internationl Basketball Challenge.

Tao Hanlin led a 7-0 run from 45 seconds in the final quarter and helped China cutting the gap to two. Zhao Jiwei's three-pointer with one minute and 16 seconds to the end tied the score at 52-52. Gao Shang then made in a lay-up for China.

Kristers Zeidaks then answered with a lay-up to tie the score at 54-54. Tao Hanlin came out to make a lay-up with 27 seconds left. Lithuania team missed two chances to tie the score in the final seconds and then lost the ticket for the final.

Tao Hanlin finished with a match-high 22 points. He also grabbed eight rebounds.

But an awesome fourth quarter could not cover Chinese team's poor performance in the first three periods. They were outscored 8-12 in the first quarter and 14-17 in the second.

Wu Qian scored eight of his second team-high 14 points in the second quarter. He and Tao were the only two Chinese players who reached double-digits.

Lithuania outrebounded China 40-30. Arvydas Gydra led Lithuania with 17 points.

"Our team is like a All-star team of the national league," said Paulius Juodis, head coach of Lithuania. "We have some former national team players and five to six players from the young national team." Endi