The preliminary round began today and Jordan came out of the blocks with an upset over China and took a step towards possible qualification. There's a lot of basketball to be played before the preliminaries turn into the medal round semifinals with the Olympic berths on the line. Two teams from Asia will qualify in this process.
See Asia Basket's blog entry on the game result:
Jordan started the FIBA-Asia Championship (Tokushima, Japan 28 JUL - 5 AUG) with a big win over China 78-65 before few hours in the opening game of Group A.
Nashama's players were in the better side in 1st quarter despite being behind at the end of it 17-18 by a shot from Ming Yang, Rasheim Wright (193-G-81, college: District of Columbia) scored in this quarter 10 points.
Islam Abbas's explosive performance especially in defense helped Jordan to take the lead from the beginning of 2nd quarter which were played most of it with Jordanian bench players Wissam Sous, Fadel Najjar and Zeid Abbas, All of them were adding a big help for Sam Daghlas and Zaid Al Khas to end the quarter leading 35-30, Chinese players tried their best in this quarter to stay in the game's atmosphere especially from Qian Wu and Ke Li.
Third quarter was the key of the Jordanian win after they succeeded to increase the margin to 11 points 60-49 thanks to Wright and Al Khas who scored most of his point in it, Adding to the huge performance from Islam Abbas in rebounding and Daghlas in smart assists, Chinese players had suffered from foul trouble so much which added more pressure on the keys Yang and Lei.
Li Yi began the 4th quarter with 4 consecutive points and that gave the chinese the willing to win again, But quickly Jordan's coach Mario Palma found the strategy and the way for keeping the range, Wright was the star of the last quarter after scoring most of the team's point to lead the game which ended 78-65 in scoring with 31 points.
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