China survives Kazakhstan, 73-67

MANILA, Philippines – China's road back to the FIBA Asia title gets tougher without Yi Jianlian.

China survived a big scare from Kazakhstan without their injured star to notch its first win in the second round, 73-67, on Monday in the 2013 Manila FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Zhou Pheng rescued China from the claws of defeat hitting seven of his game-high 17 points inside the final three minutes.

Kazakhstan grabbed the lead, 63-62, in the final 3:12 on Mikhail Yevstigneyev’s free throws but it proved to be short-lived as Zhu Fangyu restored China’s lead before Zhou hit a clutch triple for a 67-63 buffer.

Zhou let out a huge sigh of relief after hitting his first and only trey in the game.

Kazakhstan’s naturalized player Jerry Johnson pulled them within two, 65-67, but Whang Zhizhi scored on a putback before Zhou wrapped the game up with two straight baskets.

 â€œI think I have to congratulate my players,” said China’s Greek coach Panagiotis Giannakis after the hard earned win.  â€œThey played a really good game with a lot of concentration and a lot of focus and desire to win the game.”

Yi sat out for the third straight game due to hamstring and groin injury and his status is day-to-day.  

 Panagiotis is planning to rest him for the rest of the second round in the hopes of getting him 100 percent ready by the knockout stages that will start on Friday.

In this game, Kazakhstan pushed and shoved Panagiotis’ young squad testing their toughness. And their Greek coach was pleased they pushed back and survived this test.

“We faced a team who are together for a lot of time,” Panagiotis said. “We played a team a team with a lot of contact and my players never stopped playing and we never lost our composure.”

China improved to 1-2 in Group F while Kazakhstan suffered its first loss in the tournament sliding to a 2-1 record.  

Zhou shot 50 percent from the field hitting 6-of-12 while Whang added 12 and six boards. Zhu (15 points) and Whang Shipeng (9 points) combined for five triples as China wrested control in the first half leading by as many as 16.

Johnson, who missed a game-tying three-pointer in the closing seconds paced Kazakhstan with 13.