Depending champion China defeated Kazakhstan during their first game in the second round of FIBA Asia Championship with the final score at 71-67 held on Monday at the Mall of Asia Arena. Team Kazakhstan suffered its first loss of the tournament after they led Group D during the preliminary round.
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The Chinese national squad was playing without the service of injured superstar Yi Jianlian for the third straight game. The team was leading early with 24-10 after the end of the first quarter. The Kazakhs bounced back and responded with their offense limiting the Chinese with just 8 points in the third quarter and cut its deficit with just four points at 50-46.
The Kazakhs went on with a 14-3 run in the fourth and took the lead at 64-63 courtesy of the leadership contributions from burly center Mikhail Yevstigneyev. Chinese star Zhou Peng answered with a back-to-back points to give China the lead for good at 67-63 added by Wang Zhizhi and Sun Yue who also scored and kept the Kazakhstan at bay.
Zhou led China with 17 points while Zhu Fangyu added 15. Johnson had 13 points and six (–foul word(s) removed–)ists for Kazakhstan while ace forward Anton Ponomarev struggled for the third straight game, scoring just six points even as he grabbed 10 rebounds.
