On the evening of August 17th, Chinese men‘s basketball welcomed the third game of the warm-up series at Foshan, against Team New Zealand. Under an unfavorable situation of falling 12 points behind in the first three quarters, Chinese men‘s basketball reached a small climax of 12-2 in the fourth quarter, but ultimately still fell to 77-84. With this, Chinese men‘s basketball‘s summer warm-up matches were all over, with the record locked at 4 wins and 2 losses.
In this match, the list of 12 men‘s basketball players in China is: Liao Sanning, Zhao Jiwei, Li Hongquan, Pang Zhenglin, Hu Jinqiu, Zhu Junlong, Li Yuzhou, Zhao Jiayi, He Xining, Jiao Poqiao, Hu Mingxuan, Wang Junjie, Yang Hansen has returned to the team but has not played. The first five players are: Zhao Jiwei, He Xining, Wang Junjie, Zhu Junlong, Hu Jinqiu. In the first quarter, the scores were very close, with China’s men‘s basketball trailing by 1 point with a score of 19–20. In the second quarter, New Zealand won by another 3 points, leading by 4 points in the first half with a score of 43–39.
In the third quarter, the Chinese men‘s basketball team only scored 18 points, while New Zealand scored 26 points with great firepower. The Chinese men‘s basketball team was 12 points behind in entering the fourth quarter. In the final quarter, the Chinese men‘s basketball offensive team finally regained their touch and hit the opponent 12-2, reducing the difference to 2 points. New Zealand urgently called for a pause, then scored 8 points in a row. In the end, the Chinese men‘s basketball team was inferior to New Zealand’s men‘s basketball team by 77-84, suffering two consecutive defeats. In this game, the Chinese men‘s basketball team lost to New Zealand by 16 rebounds, with three-point goals of 25 to 6.
In post-match interviews, the New Zealanders said they had trained together for 5 days before coming to China for the match, practicing together 4 to 5 times.
On August 28 and 31, Chinese men‘s basketball will face Qatar and Lebanon in the second phase of the World Series.