Friday’s schedule

0900 Hrs: 9-12 Place: Malaysia Vs.UAE

1100 Hrs: 9-12 Place: Uzbekistan Vs. Syria

1330 Hrs: QF: Jordan Vs. Iran

1530 Hrs: QF: Korea Vs. Japan

1800 Hrs: QF: Philippines Vs. Ch. Taipei

2000 Hrs: QF: Lebanon Vs. China

WUHAN, China (26th FIBA Asia Championship): Hosts China scored the first five points of the game and never trailed before handing out a 84-58 defeat to fellow East Asian team Japan to bring the curtain down on the Second Round and head into the quarterfinals with their confidence supremely high.

China undefeated in the competition in six games cutting across two sets of round-robins will go against Lebanon, in a repeat of the 2009 FIBA Asia Championship semifinal two years ago, while Japan will play against another East Asia team Korea.

All quarterfinals are scheduled for Friday after Thursday’s rest day.

“The real tournament begins in the quarterfinals,” said China coach Bob Donewald.

“Well, we respect all our opponents. We will play hard on the court,” he said.

Zhu Fangyu set the court ablaze in the first quarter scoring 8 points – out of a 13 for the game – before the Yis – Yi Jianlian and Yi Li took over charge.

Yi Jianlian accounted for 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Yi Li had 19 points.

Wang ZhiZhi too came into play in the second half, scored 13 points and had what Donewald termed a “very satisfactory game.”

Liu Wei had 14 points, collected 5 rebounds and dished out many assists.

“I think all the guys are coming together well. We shouldn’t have any problems,” Donewald said.

“But our opponents seem to play better against us than against the others. But we’ll sort out as we have so far,” he added.

Takuya Kawamura had a free run for Japan and had a game-high 24 points.

“Well they are a quality team. I think we did our best,” said Japan coach Tom Wisman.

Box scores

Play by play

FIBA Asia