Chinese men's basketball team were knocked out of the competition after losing to Lithunania on Wednesday. Wang Zhizhi, Liu Wei and several other Chinese basketball players wrote summaries about their performance in Beijing Olympics on their blogs at sohu.com. The following is a translation of their blogs by chinadaily.com.cn.
Wang Zhizhi, Chinese basketball player
http://wangzhizhi.blog.sohu.com/97747063.html
We didn't play as well when facing Lithuania and Greece as in previous games.
However, it’s ok for us to get this far. After all, we are not strong enough to beat these opponents. As basketball is a “practical” game, miracles could only happen once or twice.
We are going to look at ourselves closely after the Olympics and hope you will continue to support us! We have played our best which I believe you could see.
Liu Wei, Chinese basketball player
http://liuweisohublog.blog.sohu.com/97752487.html
The game is over. But I’m not relaxed at all. I regret that we lost to Lithuania again, the same as in the Athens Games four years ago. The team’s defense has improved during the last four years, but we still have a long way to go in offense. Whether you can win a game relies heavily on the scores you can get.
We have learned a lot from this Olympics. Though we cannot go further, we know where we need to improve.
We couldn’t have advanced into top eight without your constant support. The experiences and lessons we have accumulated during the past four years will be of great wealth to us.
Wang Lei, Chinese basketball player
http://sohuwangleiblog.blog.sohu.com/97747546.html
This Olympics is a lesson for me. I played so-so. And I really felt nervous in this world-level competition. I’ve learned a lot from the games, including defense and how the top basketball teams play in such a competition.
The Games are over for us in the Beijing Olympics, but I will continue my efforts. I believe the Chinese men’s basketball team will have a bright future.
Hu Weidong, former Chinese basketball player
http://hwdblog.blog.sohu.com/97763944.html
I could see the distance between our team and the world-class teams from the China-Lithuania game.
Many people think the current Chinese men’s team is the most powerful one in China’s basketball history. Yeah, it’s true on defense and confrontation. But when it comes to cooperation and smoothness of offense, the team would be formidable if we did better in these two aspects.
Shooting guard Sun Yue surprised me the most in the Beijing Olympics. He was very steady and aggressive. But I think Yao Ming was not well utilized.
The team could go further, in my opinion. It was a great pity that we lost to Spain. We had the chance to win but failed. On the other hand, our target did not seem that clear. We should have retained the energy for the match with Lithuania.
However, congratulations to the team for entering the top eight, Jonas Kazlauskas, the head coach did do a lot to the team. But we have higher expectations and I’m confident China’s basketball will have better show in the future.
