China cut down to size by Japan's pacey run-and-gun game

With its sizeable assets neutralized by Japan's run-and-gun game, the Chinese women's team has crashed out of its home Asia Cup earlier than expected, with alarm bells ringing for the future.

A perennial continental power, proud of its talented supply of towering post players, the Chinese women's basketball program has learned the hard way how the modern game has evolved into a competition of sheer speed, sharpness and an intensity delivered at a much faster pace.

China's towering center Zhang Ziyu seen during the third-place playoff against South Korea at the FIBA Women's Asia Cup on Sunday. The defending champion took a bronze with a big 101-66 win, one day after its loss to Japan in the semifinals on Saturday. XINHUA

The lesson was a harsh one after Team China, as defending champion and a higher-ranked favorite, suffered a 90-81 semifinal loss to Japan on Saturday in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, missing out on the final of the FIBA continental showpiece for the first time in eight years.

After overpowering the same opponent twice in warm-up games last month, Team China soon realized on Saturday that its size advantage wouldn't help that much on a night when Japan felt a need for speed — and opened the game firing on all cylinders.

In an incredible display, Japan's teen star Kokoro Tanaka set the tone by scoring 21 of her 27 total points in the first quarter alone.

She caught the host off guard by hitting five 3-pointers in a row, tearing China's slow-rotating zone defense apart, while silencing the crowd at the Shenzhen Sports Center Gymnasium.

China, though, came back strongly in the second quarter, relying on its towering combo of 6-foot-10 forward Han Xu and 7-foot-5 center Zhang Ziyu, to take a 51-49 lead into halftime.

However, 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 Japan's early advantage.

Captain Maki Takada then plunged the dagger in further, hitting one from near the rim with 32.3 seconds left to settle the eventual scoreline and help avenge Japan's narrow 73-71 defeat to China in the 2023 Asia Cup final in Sydney.

Leading China on a heartbreaking night for the national side was forward Yang Shuyu, who finished with 19 points.

Former WNBA star Han contributed 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, while 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 in trying to put up a fight, 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-paced, 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 in our plans for the future, or give up on our strength altogether. We will learn, adapt and improve to achieve the ultimate goal at the 2028 Olympic Games."

Citing the fast-evolving international game, Han suggests more young talent should seek opportunities to ply their trade overseas, despite lower average salaries, even in the WNBA, compared to China's domestic league.

"The world has moved far ahead of us, with the game changing in how it is supposed to be played and how to win," said Han, who played with WNBA's New York Liberty for two separate seasons in 2019 and 2021.

"We saw that after a disappointing Olympic campaign last year in Paris, and today was another painful reminder.

"I will try to make my way back into an overseas league to keep honing my individual game next season, and I hope more will follow me in order to improve in a more competitive environment."

Japan's head coach Corey Gaines attributed the successful revenge mission 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."