Madariaga Valdemoro scored 22 of her 30 points in one quarter to
lead Spain past China 75-67 here on Monday for its second straight
win at the women's basketball tournament of the Athens Olympic
Games.
Shooting 4-for-5 from beyond the arch and 9-for-11 from the
field, Valdemoro scored 22 points in the first quarter to lift the
Spaniards to a stunning 34-10 lead over the Asian champion.
Trailing by some 20 points through the second and third
quarter,the Chinese women surged back in the final quarter and cut
their deficit to 75-67 with 33 seconds remaining. However, that was
toolate.
"It sounds crazy, but I do have a better first quarter when I
scored 27 points in a Spanish league game," said Valdemoro, who
also added six steals and three assists in 30 minutes of play.
"But it's not the same situation, because this time we are
playing in the Olympics, especially with such a strong team like
China," she added.
China head coach Gong Luming admitted he made mistakes in
defensive tactics early in the game.
"Our coach team made mistakes in designing our tactics,
especially that of defense," Gong said.
"We know Valdemoro is a very good player, but we also got the
information that she had not been training normally because of
injury," Gong added. "So we did not press her hard enough in
defense."
Spain, 80-78 over-time winners over Czech Republic on
Saturday,improved to 2-0 in group B while China had one win and one
loss inhand.
"It's an important win for us," said Spain head coach Vicente
Rodriguez. "We played a great first quarter when we had good
intensity, especially in defense."
"We lost a little intensity later on and allowed China come to
the game a little more," Rodriguez added. "China put a lot of
pressure on us late in the game while our players got tired and
began to make more mistakes."
Chen Nan led China with 18 points and nine rebounds and Ye Li
added 12 points.
"We did not play well in defense at the beginning, which made
the game very difficult for us," Chen said. "But we fought back and
gave our opponents some pressure late in the game."
(Xinhua News? Agency? August 17, 2004)