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China suffers second straight loss, USA dominates again in Olympic basketball

Xinhua, August 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

Chinese men's basketball team suffered their second loss against France at 88-60, while defending champion USA showed their dominance with a 113-69 victory over American champion Venezuela in the second round of group phase at the Rio Olympic Games on Monday.

"We played a decent game, and showed our mentality. We wanted to show our best self in the game, but we had to admit the gap between the two sides," said Gong Luming, China's head coach.

"We had 60 points, which showed our poor performance in the offensive end," he added.

Former NBA player Yi Jianlian had a team-high 19 points and six rebounds. Wang Zhelin finished with 11.

Both teams tied several times after the tip-off, before the French team, who came on the Olympic stage through the qualifiers, led by five points with a 9-4 run as the first quarter ran out.

Boris Diaw and Nicolas Batum hit consecutive three-pointers, earning their team a 23-9 second quarter. France once led by 27 points midway through the third period, before the Asian champion cut the deficit to 18 points, spearheaded by Yi.

China was placed in Group A, the "Death Group", with USA, Serbia, France, Venezuela and Australia. They were beaten by USA with a 57-point gap in the opening match.

China will face Venezuela on Wednesday.

"For us, every game is crucial, and we will try our best in the next three group games. Actually, these games are the most important for the team during the past three years," commented Gong.

Venezuela restricted the Olympic and World Cup defending champions to an 18-18 first quarter. However, the USA team took on a 30-8 second quarter to pull away, and never seemed to be tested in the second half.

Five USA players hit double-digit points, led by Paul George's 20. Jimmy Butler and Kevin Durant added 17 and 16 points respectively.

In Monday's another Group A match, Austraila beat Serbia 95-80. Endit