‘We gave China a run for their money’: Chism

TDT | Manama                                             

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain head coach Mindaugas Lukosius expressed his pride in Bahrain’s senior men’s national team players for their strong fighting spirit in their near-upset of continental powerhouses China on Thursday, in their second Group B game of the FIBA Asia Cup 2022, being held in Indonesia.

The Bahrainis lost by a single point, 79-80, and could have pulled off a stunning win if not for a late basket by their rivals that allowed them to escape with the result. Nonetheless, Lukosius praised his team for their heroic efforts.

“The height advantage and size were for China, but I am proud of our players,” Lukosius said during his post-game Press conference. “The rebounds are the same numbers, and we really played great defence.

“A lack of some experience [is the reason] that we lost this game.” Star big man Wayne Chism was also in high spirits. “We gave China a run for their money,” he said. “We were way better than the first game we played here.”

Adjustments

Lukosius and Chism underlined that their team did well to make the necessary adjustments in the contest and stayed resilient after China built an early lead in the opening period. “In the first quarter, we struggled a little,” Lukosius said.

“China started great with mostly three-point shooting, but after that we corrected a little bit our defence; we made adjustments on our switching and in the second half we were much better.” Chism added: “It was a very physical game in the first half, we gave up a lot of threes but out of all those threes, we stayed together. We fought until the end.

“No matter how good their shooters were, and we couldn’t make some shots and were committing turnovers, we didn’t let that derail us from our game plan and we stayed together.” The Bahrainis stood toe-totoe with their opponents, who— being ranked 29th on the FIBA World Rankings and with Bahrain being 106th—were heavily favoured to come away with an easy win.

Bahrain suffered their second straight defeat in this opening stage of the competition and have a must-win game remaining in Group B against South Korea today at 7am, Bahrain time. China secured their first victory after earlier losing to the Koreans, and today go up against Chinese-Taipei at 4pm, Bahrain.

Meanwhile, Bahrain Basketball Association president Captain Waleed Al Alawi congratulated the national team following their fine effort against China and directed that a bonus be paid to the team’s members.