China’s National Basketball Team beat Australia in their second friendly match of the week with an impressive 74-61 victory. NBA stars were largely missing with Australia’s Andrew Bogut, Patrick Mills and China’s Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian all not participating in the match.

Sun Yue, who’s just completed his first season with the Los Angeles Lakers, again failed to impress with only 3 points.

Li Xiaoxu, who’s Yao Ming’s replacement at center, gave another strong performance with 13 points and 9 rebounds just one day after it was announced Yao Ming’s career might be over. Wang Zhizhi with his years of experience in the international game, was again the leader of this group in the abscence of Yao Ming.

Most impressive and encouraging for the China side was how they managed to limit Australia to only 20 points – their worst first half performance in international play. Nathan Jawai had another impressive game for the Boomers shooting 11-12 from the field and finishing with 28 points and 11 rebounds – he plays for the Toronto Raptors.

Perhaps Guo Shiqiang can get the Chinese basketball team over the hump next year in the World Basketball Championship with a defense minded side.