Yi Jianlian scores 27 in pre-olympic tournament game

China national team beat Croatia 90 ~ 82 for their 5th win in this 4-Nations International Invitational.

The starting 5 were Liu Wei, Wang Shipeng, Zhu Fangyu, Ding Jinhui and Yi Jianlian.

Sun Yue and Wang Zhelin had a rest day, while Zhang Bo had left CNT to return to Beijing to nurse his shoulder injury.

The national team had a relatively easy game, led from start to finish; they first carved out a 7-point lead in 1Q (23 ~ 16), extended the lead to double digits by half time (46 ~ 34), and led 7 points (68 ~ 61) by end of 3Q. They kept a lead of 8 to 9 points throughout 4Q; and when the Croatians got the game back to 5 points towards end of 4Q, Yi Jianlian and Zhou Peng stepped up to take it back to 10 points by the 1 minute mark. They then coasted to victory.

Yi Jianlian had an AWESOME game, scoring a double-double with 27 points (12/25 FG% 1/1 3-pointer% 2/3 FT%), 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block shot in 27 minutes of action.

2 other CNT players were in double-digit scoring; Wang Zhizhi started from the bench, but was utterly efficient to score 12 points (4/4 FG% 2/2 3-pointer% 2/3 FT%), 2 rebounds and 2 assists in 12 minutes of action. Zhou Peng contributed 12 points (4/5 FG% 4/7 FT%) and 4 rebounds in 17 minutes of action.

Wang Shipeng and Zhu Fangyu both showed signs of returning to form; Wang Shipeng made 3 out of 3 of his 3-pointers to end up with 9 points (3/6 FG% 3/3 3-pointer% 0/1 FT%) and 2 assists in 18 minutes of action; Zhu Fangyu scored 7 points (1/4 FG% 1/3 3-pointer% 4/6 FT%) and 2 rebounds in 29 minutes of action.

Yi Li was pretty efficient to score 8 points (3/4 FG% 0/1 3-pointer% 2/3 FT%) in 22 minutes of action.

Liu Wei had 4 points (1/6 FG% 1/3 3-pointer% 1/2 FT%), 2 rebounds and 3 assists in 31 minutes of action. Chen Jianghua proved a worthwhile backup for Liu Wei, scoring 6 points (3/5 FG%), 6 rebounds and 3 assists in 19 minutes of action.

Both Max Zhang Zhaoxu and Su Wei started from the bench played very little and were both held scoreless. Ding Jinhui had 5 points (2/2 FG% 1/1 FT%), 1 rebound and 1 assist in 11 minutes of action.

Guo Ailun was only given some token play minutes (28 seconds) towards the end of 4Q; he was all zero across the board. He probably had screwed up his chance for making the Final 12 roster.

by pruyen