Chinese national basketball team beat the Australian Melbourne Tigers 84-78 in Macao Wednesday night in a basketball challenge for the 2008 Beijing Olympics training tour.

 

Yao Ming the team's soul and NBA All-Star center for Houston Rockets, top scored both sides with 25 points in his second match since his returning from honeymoon.

 

Yao dominated the painted area in offensive side by making 11 out of his 17 shots and grabbed eight rebounds.

 

But the 2.26-meter giant struggled at the penalty line Wednesday with only a 50 percent out of six free throws.

 

Yi Jianlian, the No. 6 rookie picked by the Milwaukee Bucks in this year's NBA draft, added 20 points to help China get over the Melbourne Tigers comfortably.

 

Wang Zhizhi, a former NBA player, returned to the team Wednesday from fever and tallied 11 points.

 

It is the first time for China to have the NBA trio to play for the same match this year but they did not get much help from their back court 3-point shooters, who made 5 out of 18 attempts.

 

Guard Wang Shipeng contributed eight points while shooter Zhu Fangyu and guard Liu Wei both added seven points apiece. Veteran point guard Li Nan got five points and teenager forward Zhou Peng offer one point from the free throws.

 

Chris Anstey topsored for the Australians by getting 15 points.

 

"China was a good and talented team with Yao and Yi," head coach of Melbourne Tigers Alan Westover said at a post-match press conference, "but I'm happy with the efforts made by my boys."

 

"Our strategy is to bring Yao away from the basket and we hit a couple of good shots during the second half," he said.

 

"It's good for us to be here to play with China 's national team in our pre-season training for the National Basketball League (NBL)," he said, "we are hopeful that it is also good for China and wish them good luck in Beijing."

 

The Melbourne Tigers have won three NBL championships in Australia and have also finished the second place in the NBL finals for three times.

 

China's head coach Jonas Kazlauskas was still absent in Europe.

 

Executive coach of China Guo Shiqiang told the post-match press conference that he was glad with the results, particularly on the offensive side.

 

"This is an important game for us and the Australians gave us a lot difficulty with their defense," Guo said, "they were well-prepared and planned accordingly."

 

"Yao's performance is beyond my expectations since he was not at his best level just days from resuming training," he said, "Yao had created a lot of chances outside the 3-point range but our guard did not catch those chances and missed a couple of shots."

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2007)