Olympics: Lithuania demolishes Yao and China's Olympic dream

Thursday, 21 August 2008

BEIJING - Lithuania used a potent three-point attack to shoot down towering centre Yao Ming's dream of bringing China an Olympic medal Wednesday dispatching the Beijing Games hosts 94-68 in the quarter-finals.

The Lithuanians extended a nine-point halftime lead to 70-53 to start the final period with a barrage of third quarter threes with Panathinaikos star Sarunas Jasikevicius and Denver Nugget Linus Kleiza hitting two three-pointers each.

Fighting through a constant Lithuanian double team, Yao mustered 19 points mostly from the free-throw line, while his teammates could not hit their open jumpers until well after the game had been decided.

Lithuanian knocked down 13 of 31 three pointers, while China made a dismal four of 21.

The former Golden State Warrior Jasikevicius led Lithuanian with 23 points, while backcourt partner from CSKA Moscow Ramunas Siskauskas had 15 and Kleiza chipped in 13 for the winners.

A sea of raucous Chinese fans waving the red flag of China cheered their team to the end, repeatedly drowning out a very vocal group of Lithuanian supporters dressed in their nation's green and yellow.

Arguably the biggest game of his career, Yao started slowly scoring his first point off a free throw early in the second quarter as New Jersey Net Yi Jianlian and guards Liu Wei and Sun Yue combined for 15 of China's first 19 points.

In the second period, the towering Houston Rocket was more effective inside, but a series of turnovers allowed Lithuania to extend a 19-18 lead to 41-30 at the halftime.