Any avid Asian basketball follower would be surprised to see how China’s national basketball team got cut down to bits and pieces following its humiliating 52-70 defeat over rising Iran recently in the 2009 FIBA-Asia Men’s basketball championships right before a shocked Chinese crowd in Tianjin, China.
I missed watching the gold medal game, but from the reports I read in the newspapers and online news feeds, China appeared tentative in the face of a fluid offense and defense of the Iranians.
On the other hand, Iran was at its fiercest form, attacking China’s fading defense with impunity, anchored on its 7’3” massive big man Hamed Ehadadi, who ended the game with 21 points and 17 rebounds, towering over China’s “smaller” big men.
Though China had two seven-footers in Wang Zhi-zhi and Yi Jian Lian, the past and present face of China in the NBA, both Chinese big men failed to make any dent defensively against Hamed, who was just unstoppable once he gets the ball in the painted area.
Meantime, Team Pilipinas, after a promising start, went down in a whimper, losing its last three games to wound up seventh place in the tournament that was to serve as a qualifier for the 2010 FIBA World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey.
Interestingly, after finishing second behind Iran, China’s head coach Guo Shiqiang came under fire by the harsh reception of rabid Chinese fans and the sports press for their failure to win the gold before hometown crowd.
And Guo’s response was something our coaches could learn from:
“As head coach, I take full responsibility for the loss,” said Guo, 34, a former point guard for China who is the youngest-ever national coach.
“We were not well prepared mentally, while the players had too much pressure on them,” he told the press in a post-game conference.
Excuses were never part of Guo’s system. He knew he had shortcomings as coach of the Chinese basketball team.
I’m no Chinese basketball fan (though I’m a Filipino-Chinese), but with what he did, I’m pretty sure in the coming months, there would be serious adjustments on the China basketball program.
With this, Iran, Jordan and Lebanon better be prepared.
As for Team Pilipinas, the 2009 FIBA Asia Men’s basketball tournament goes down in history as another tournament where local basketball leaders failed to learn the lessons of the past.
Hopefully, the Tianjin heartache would rouse our basketball leaders to be unified, set aside petty differences and work towards the common goal of bringing Team Pilipinas back to the world map of basketball.
Photo Source: http://blog.cleveland.com/olympics_impact/2008/08/ehadadi.jpg