Suffocated and stifled by an impressive Greek defense, Yao Ming struggled to notch 10 points and eight rebounds as China crashed out in the second round of the World Basketball Championships in Saitama, Japan, losing to Greece 95-64.

Greece, led by Theodoros Papaloukas's 19 points, six assists and five steals, go on to face France in the quarter-finals.

Yao, who averaged 23.7 points and 7.7 rebounds in the previous five games, was 3-5 from the field and 4-4 from the line, receiving two fouls in 31 minutes.

Greece intelligently cut the connections from the guards to Yao, a tactic that helped produce 13 steals from China's 24 turnovers.

"Greece played the best all-out defense in the tournament. We didn't expect it be so difficult to pass the ball to Yao," said guard Zhu Fangyu, who scored 12 points.

"It's quite frustrating to lose the game. We wanted to go further in the tournament. Entering the second round was just our lowest goal. We did not push ourselves to the utmost," Yao said.

"Our players had not played against defense like this, which, I have to say, is commonly found in the European leagues. We committed too many mistakes, and lost confidence," said China's coach Jonas Kaslauskas, trainer of Greece's Olympiakos last season.

China had started the game well with a opening 12-2 rally and had continued the trend into the second quarter at 23-11.

After 10 minutes of poor shooting, the European champions focused on defense to create a series of turnovers for some easy baskets, making a 11-0 run to take the lead 28-27, midway through the second quarter.

Greece never looked back after that and took a commanding lead at 78-53 with a 28-6 run in the third to secure the game.

China's six guards committed 17 turnovers and produced no steals while Greece had 58 points inside the paint despite the 2.26-meter Yao's presence.

(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2006)