“Wow, I didn’t know Wang ZhiZhi was good enough to play on the Chinese national team. When we played together on the Heat, I thought he was Japanese the whole time…and sucked,” Wade surprisingly mentioned to Carlos Boozer while sitting on the bench.
Wang was China’s second leading scorer and rebounder with 19 points, seven rebounds, and five assists. Wang wowed fans and astonished team USA with his three-point shooting and pinpoint passing.
Wang, once an NBA player, could not make the transition into NBA play but has a great deal of international success. His international stats almost quadruple his NBA statistics.
With 5:26 to go in the first half, Tayshuan Prince had an unexpected play.
Prince, who played eight minutes in the first half, had not touched the ball yet. He even begged Paul to pass him the ball once, but was quickly turned down when Kobe Bryant walked by.
Up 46-32, Prince finally got the ball on an inbound play under the basket when he inbounded the ball off of Yao’s back and quickly retrieved the ball and scored. Prince was then substituted out of the game for LeBron James.
“I took Prince out because that’s not what we want him to do,” Coach K told reporters after the game. “We put Prince on the team to play defense and pass the ball, not to score.”
Team USA took a 56-38 lead heading into the second half.
The Americans started the second half with Redd on the court, replacing Wade, who had aggravated his shoulder when he ran into teammate Howard.
This time, Redd had a different plan. Discouraged from all his missed shots in the first half, he drove to the basket. But Yao had other ideas. Yao threw Redd’s layup so far up into the stands that it almost made it to the second level.
That was the last time we ever saw Redd go inside the arc for the rest of the game.
“Bad idea,” Redd later admitted. “I’d rather miss six threes than have my shot thrown that far.”
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