S Korea beats defending champions China at Asia Championship

Photo taken on August 1 shows the moment at the 27th Asian men's basketball championships in Manila. Defending champions China lost 59-63 to South Korea in their opening match at the 27th Asian men's basketball championships on Thursday. (CNS Photo)

Defending champions China found their arch-rivals South Korea too difficult to beat as they lost 59-63 in their opening match at the 27th Asian men's basketball championships on Thursday.

Former NBA player Yi Jianlian led China with 23 points but was the only Chinese player to reach double figures.

Kim Joo-Sung was the hero for South Korea as he scored team-high 15 points. He put a layup and drew a foul from China before his 2+1 performance helped South Korea to tie at 55-55.

Chou Sung-Min then made four free throws to enlarge the lead to four points.

China's Liu Xiaoyu then got a basket and the foul, but he missed his bonus charity which gave Yang Dong-Geun opportunity to secure the victory for South Korea.

Chinese shooters had an extremely poor performance as they went none out of 14 in three-point attempts. They also lost 20 free throws.

"We had a good defense tonight but my players missed too many layups and too many easy baskets," China coach Panagiotis Giannakis said after the match.

"I don't think our shooters have problems. They were just a little be panic and it's normal for the first match of a tournament."

Chinese veteran Wang Zhizhi played only three minutes and made two shots.

"The type of this match is quite different from Wang's type. We want to put players on the court same to the type," Giannakis explained. "For another reason, we have to look longer than today's match."

Yi Jianlian and Wang Zhelin grabbed 10 rebounds each to help China out-rebound South Korea 34-25 but Yi's injury still hauled him.

"I still can't run with my full speed. It's very sorry that I can't perform my best to help the team," said Yi. "We knew it would be a tough match. We didn't shoot very well today and I hope we'll get better in future."

It's the first time for South Korea to beat their East Asian neighbors in the Asian Championshps since 1997.

"We were aware that Chinese players are quite taller than us. So we practised a lot to prepare for the match," said South Korean coach Yoo Jae-Hak. "We overcame the disadvantage in height and we will try to do better in tomorrow's match against Iran as Iran is also a taller team."

Iran beat Malasysia 115-25 in an earlier match to top Group C. China face Malaysia on Friday.