China plays Yi Jianlian in easy win ahead of KO games

MANILA, Philippines – China played star Yi Jianlian some minutes to get his rhythm back in an 88-66 rout of Bahrain at the close of the second round in the 2013 Manila FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Jianlian started and finished with 12 points in 13 minutes as the 7-foot NBA veteran showed no ill effects of his hamstring and groin injury that forced him to sit out the last four games.

China will be facing Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals as Gilas Pilipinas is expected to get past through Hong Kong, who are playing as of posting time.

The defending FIBA Asia champion raced to a 21-5 lead at the end of the opening quarter and never looked back.

China’s Greek coach Panagiotis Giannakis declared afterwards that his team is ready for the real battle.

“It was a good practice for us. We controlled difficult situations – small against big and we also played 40-minute zone of the opponents,” Giannakis said.

Six players scored in double figures for China including Jianlian, who also added six boards.

Chen Jianghua paced the Chinese with 13 points off the bench.  Wang Zhizhi and reserves Gou Allun and Wang Zhelin added 11 points each while Zhou Peng, the hero in their tough victory against Kazakhstan, wound up with 10 markers.

“So now comes the real tournament,” Giannakis said. “So it’s now the knockout games and we had a good preparation until now.”

China started the tournament with 1-2 record in the opening round losing to heavyweights Korea and Iran before breezing past through in the second round with three straight victories which Giannakis used as practice games for the big game on Friday.

“We have to be ready now and I hope everybody got adjusted for the knockout games.”