China Loses Game, Players Lose Tempers

China's players were not in a happy mood after losing 91-77 against Greece on Monday. Yao Ming walked past reporters without speaking and shouted angrily to himself and punched his left hand as left the tunnel.

Yao may have been upset about playing just 18 minutes. He played well enough on offense, scoring 16 points. But despite picking up just one foul against the smaller Greeks, he wasn't enough of a deterrent on the defensive end, as Greece big men Ioannis Bourousis and Sofoklis Schortsanitis combined to score 27 points on 10-for-17 shooting. China Coach Jonas Kazlauskas was asked if Yao was angry about his playing time.

"Yao is a fighter. He wants to play. He wants to fight, but he is a player and I am the coach," Kazlauskas said. "I am the one making these decisions . . . Yao should play for a long time, but today was not the time."

The loss secured the fourth seed from Group B for China, meaning that it will face Group A winner Lithuania in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. A win would've meant playing defending gold medallist Argentina, the No. 2 seed in Group 3 in the medal round opener. Neither option is particularly ideal, but Kazlauskas is from Lithuania and might know a little something about the team, since he served as national team coach from 1997-2001 (Kazlauskas, remember, was the coach who nearly engineered an upset of the United States in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when Lithuania lost 85-83 after Sarunas Jasikevicius's three-pointer came up about 10 inches short).

When Li Nan sat at the podium to discuss the game afterward, he made an opening statement expressing his disappointment about a loss in which Greece led 46-24 at halftime before China made a small rally, cutting the deficit to 10 in the final three minutes.

Li then took his frustration out on a Chinese reporter who wanted to know how he felt about seeing Liu Xiang, the defending Olympic champion in the 110-meter hurdles, limping out of the Bird's Nest with a heel injury.

"Is that a basketball player?" Li said, according to an interpreter. "Does he play for our team? And I don't understand why you are asking a question about him."

Li then removed his headphones, dropped them on the table and angrily walked out of the press conference - after the second question.

By Michael Lee  |  August 18, 2008; 4:59 AM ET  | Category:  Baseball
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