China scares Lithuania at Stankovic Cup
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-07-28 08:36

Asian champion China scared Lithuania on Wednesday at the Stankovic Continental Champions Cup basketball tournament before losing to the European champion 68- 66.

The Chinese, who lost to Lithuania in the quarter-finals of the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, staged a 14-4 run late in the fourth quarter to tie it at 66-all, but Andriukaitis Martynas made two free throws with 29 seconds remaining to give Lithuania the winning points.

Chinese guard Liu Wei had a chance to award the host a come-from- behind victory, but his shot at the buzzer went wide.

"We wanted very much and tried very hard to win this match, but we lost," said China head coach Jonas Kazlauskas. "We had a chance to win, but we made easy mistakes in the last seconds."

"We had a plan for the last play, but our pass was bad," Jonas added. "We were playing without key players like Yao Ming, Li Nan and Du Feng, which made it difficult for us in the last minutes."

Yao, Li and Du all missed the match due to injury.

Jonas, the former head coach of the Lithuanian national team, was not satisfied with China's offense.