Sunday, July 29, 2007

Taiwan lost to Korea in Asian Championship

0729_KOR_SEUNG JIN_HA
Taiwan NT had trouble defending Korean center Ha Seung-jin.

Taiwan NT had trouble dealing with Korea's balance attack and lost 85-70 to the Koreans in its second preliminary game in the Asian Championship. Taiwan is now tied at 1-1 with Hong Kong, which surprised Syria earlier today, in Group D.

Mathematically, no team has clinched quarterfinal seeds yet but Korea is expected to beat Syria and top the group with three wins. Taiwan and Hong Kong will meet tomorrow for the other quarterfinal seed.

Taiwan trailed immediately after the game started, giving up a 7-0 run to Korea. But for 25 minutes, it was able to hang with Korea and kept the deficit within single digit. Give credit to center Wu Dai-hao, who had 20 points (10-15 FG) and 5 boards in the game and had a tough time going against 223cm giant Ha Seung-jin in the paint.

But Ha was too big for Taiwanese cagers as he had a game-high 25 points on 8 of 9 shooting and making 9 of 11 free-throws. And whenever Taiwan made a push, Korean guards answered with a timely three. Yang Dong-guen had 13 points and Shin Ki-sung had 11.

Chen Hsin-an had 14 points for Taiwan, which also had 13 points from Lin Chih-chieh and 10 points from NT rookie Lin Yi-huei.

0729_TPE_KWANG-SUK_CHUNG

0729_TPE_TAI-HAO_WU

0729_KOR_JOO_SUNG_KIM

0729_TPE_HSIN-AN_CHEN

-- Game results:
Kazakhstan 97-74 India
Hong Kong 104-100 Syria
UAE 69-68 Kuwait
Qatar 86-45 Indonesia
Korea 85-70 Taiwan
Japan 77-67 Lebanon
Philippines 79-74 China
Iran 60-54 Jordan

-- Standings:
Group A
Iran 2-0
Jordan 1-1
Philippines 1-1
China 0-2

Group B
Japan 2-0
Lebanon 1-1
UAE 1-1
Kuwait 0-2

Group C
Qatar 2-0
Kazakhstan 2-0
India 0-2
Indonesia 0-2

Group D
Korea 2-0
Taiwan 1-1
Hong Kong 1-1
Syria 0-2

(photo source: fiba.com)