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Source: AFP,

GUANGZHOU - China rode the outside shooting of guard Sun Yue, who scored 19 points, as the reigning Asian Games basketball champions knocked off South Korea 76-66 Sunday to remain unbeaten.


Former NBA centre Wang Zhizhi led China's inside attack with 16 points, while his front court mate Ding Jinhui scored eight of his 10 points in the third quarter when China took the lead for good.

"It was a good pool (group) game, the fans had a lot of fun, both teams played hard and played well," China's US coach Bob Donewald said.

"We are looking forward to our next match and moving on in the tournament."

China established its game early on, forcing South Korea to pack their defense inside.

This left China's outside shooters open with the former Los Angeles Laker Sun making four of his team's seven three pointers on the night.

The South Korean strategy to use its quickness to counter China's size basically failed due to their poor free throw shooting, making just 13 of 25, while the visitors also turned the ball over 15 times.

"We were expecting a very tough competition. China is good, they are very tall and they have good three point shooters," a disappointed South Korean coach Yoo Jae-Hak said.

"We tried our best to beat China, but they were was just too good."

The Koreans fell to three wins and one loss in the tournament but remain in second place in Group E behind China.

In a second Group E match, North Korea beat Mongolia 88-67, while Jordan beat Uzbekistan 68-63 in overtime.

In Group F, Qatar stopped Japan's three game winning streak by knocking off the East Asians 88-87 as shooter Targuy Ngombo went 13 of 20 from the field to score 33 points for the winners.

"This is the best game I've played recently, I think I did pretty well today," Ngombo said.

"I have confidence in our team that we can win, we just need to do the same thing" in the next game.

The two teams played close throughout with the game tied eight times and the lead changing 10 times.

In other Group F matches, Iran dispatched Taiwan 73-72, leaving the Iranians tied with at Japan with three wins and one loss at the top of Group F, while the Philippines knocked off India 78-57.