Iran leaves China looking inexplicably lost in Fiba Asia

LI Xiaoxu and Sun Yue box out Hamed Hadadi. NUKI SABIO/PBA IMAGE

MANILA, Philippines—With its athletic forwards, gutsy guards and NBA center turning the Mall of Asia Arena into a playground of sorts, Iran soared to a third straight win, leaving traditional powerhouse China looking like a basketball program in disarray.

The record of the continent’s most successful basketball team says it all: 1-2.

The defending champions got pipped by South Korea and then bamboozled Malaysia. Against Iran, they cobbled a collection or errors and missed shots en route to a 70-51 defeat that left a lot of people stunned and the team apologetic.

“Please give us time to get used to the situation and we’ll try to get better as the tournament moves on,” said Zhu starting guard Wang Shipeng after the game.

Wang was a perfect snapshot of the Chinese team against Iran. He led the team will 11 points but had six of the team’s 19 turnovers.

“Today, we played really bad. We didn’t start well and we committed a lot of mistakes,” said China coach Panaglotis Giannakis.

It was indeed a strange sight to watch China fumble easy pickups and lose track of rebounds—some of which turned into second chance points for Iran. But mostly, it was a shock to watch Iran attack the basket at will.

Hamed Haddadi finished with 15 points and seven rebounds while athletic swingmen Samad Nikkah Bahrami and Oshin Sahakian mixed up perimeter shots with athletic drives. All in all, Iran scored 30 points in the paint, a patch of basketball real estate long dominated by China’s talented big men.

But with Yi Jianlian out—Giannakis said he had a little “problem” and listed him day-to-day for the tournament—and the aging Wang Zhizhi unable to impose himself against Haddadi, it was Iran that looked unstoppable in the paint.

“Look, we had some bad moments but we still can control [our fate],” said Giannakis. “We made a lot of mistakes but I think we can be [better]. “

China’s loss meant that the Big Red Machine could fall to as low as No. 3 in their group going into the quarterfinals, a major implication for Team Philippines, which now has to finish No. 1 in its group to avoid the Chinese.