OS Beijing 2008 Paralympics Olympics Pekin

It seems that Yao Ming’s suffering from Chinese sports news will not be over soon, blaming the NBA center of Houston Rockets and pointing at him as a disappointing out-performer.

Chinese Nation betting on Yao’s domination under the opponent’s baskets was surprised to see their local team struggle to go through into the quarter finals, after a very bad show in the 1^st round.

Lithuania, leader of group A in preliminaries and a favorite of playing the final game didn’t have much difficulty during the 40 minutes. The European team eased itself by taking the lead since the beginning, growing a difference of 9 points at the break, and increasing it to 26 dots within the final whistle while sending the Dragons out of the tournament.

Beijing’s semi-final is Lithuania’s 5^th final 4

In a row

3rd quarter was the game’s turning point as they broke free scoring and taking advantage of 2^nd chances while the Chinese defense was unorganized at all. Despite Yao’s 19 points and 7 boards, Lithuania’s team-play on offense was bringing down the China wall of giants, not to mention the long range shots of Sarunas rimming in  5 out of 6 and leading the scoring sheet by 23.

Downtown attempts:

Lithuania averaged 42% (13/31)

China averaged 19% (4/21)

2 points trials:

66% for Lithuania

47% for China

Lithuania’s triumph today, settles a European semi-final against Spain. Spanish line up is trying to preserve its image of world champions what makes the game promising and intense. Sports news in Spain are putting a lot of pressure on their national team, that earlier in preliminaries was facing severe critics due to their humiliating loss against the USA. Lithuania’s bid will be on stopping Pau’s domination, as a key to winning while the Spaniards’ concern will be the coverage of their 3 points lane.

Odds and expectations are wide open with both teams capable of creating “bolt from the blue” and playing for Beijing’s gold! Basketball tickets are on the way of being sold out, while some grapevines mentionned black marketing!