Team China outgunned by sharp-shooting Japan at Asia Cup semifinals

With its strength in size totally overwhelmed by Japan's run-and-gun game, the Chinese women's team has learned how fast the game's evolved the hard way after suffering a 90-81 semifinal defeat to its close neighbor at the home Asia Cup.

Entering the FIBA continental showpiece in Shenzhen, Guangdong province as a hot title favorite, Team China soon realized in Saturday's semifinal that its size wouldn't help as much as it did in two previous warm-up wins over Japan on a night where its opponent opened the game firing on all cylinders.

Japan's teen star Kokoro Tanaka set the tone by scoring 21 of her 27 total points in the first quarter, catching Team China off guard by hitting five 3-pointers in a row to tear the host's defense apart, while silencing the crowd at the Shenzhen Sports Center Gymnasium.

After China came back strong in the second quarter, relying on its towering combo of 6-foot-10 forward Han Xu and 7-foot-5 center Zhang Ziyu, to lead 51-49 into halftime, Japan's sharp-shooting trio of Yuki Miyazawa, Norika Konno and Stephanie Mawuli all stepped up following the interval, connecting with a barrage of deep 3s and fast counterattacks to rebuild the advantage.

Captain Maki Takada then came through with the dagger, hitting one from near the rim with 32.3 seconds left to play to settle the eventual scoreline and complete Japan's revenge from its two warm-up losses in June and a narrow 73-71 final defeat by China at the last Asia Cup in 2023 in Sydney.

Forward Yang Shuyu led the host in scoring with 19 points, while Han contributed 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Teen prodigy Zhang, who is making her senior international debut in Shenzhen, finished with 17 points and nine rebounds in 20 minutes, the longest she's played across four games.

China's head coach Gong Luming hailed his players' efforts trying to put up a fight in front of home fans, but admitted his team has a lot of catching-up to do.

"We learned a tough lesson from today's loss. We have to figure out how to adapt our game, particularly with our twin towers on court, to the fast-pace, sharp-shooting modern game," Gong said at the post-match news conference.

"We didn't manage to guard them well enough on the perimeter, failing to contain their 3-pointers as well as we planned.

"We are still in a building process, though. We are not going to make any radical changes on our plans for the future, or giving up on our strength altogether. We will learn, adapt and improve for the ultimate goal at the 2028 Olympic Games."

Japan's head coach Corey Gaines attributed the successful revenge to his players' perfect execution of a tailored game plan against the host.

"That was a game where the players followed the game plan," Gaines said. "We had a strategy going into the game, and they executed it. China countered, we changed to another game plan."

"And they really kept their heads during the game, and they executed what we talked about. That win is for the players," continued Gaines. "The players won that game. They really did their job."

Team China will compete for a bronze medal against South Korea in Sunday afternoon ahead of the gold-medal final between Japan and Australian in the evening session.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn