THE team that gave Gilas Pilipinas fits in its maiden game in the 20th Asian Games proved to be easy picking for China.
Team Dragon destroyed the naturalized players-stacked Bahrain on Saturday, 105-59, for its second straight blowout win at the Aichi International Arena.
Sanning Liao led the Chinese assault with 23 points, while Yuezhou Li added 18 in the 46-point beating that assured China the first quarterfinals berth in Group C.
Bahrain just came from an 89-85 win over Gilas Pilipinas about 24 hours prior to meeting China.
JaKarr Sampson paced the Bahrainis with 17 points, while Elijah Thomas was held on a 4-of-10 shooting for 10 points, or about half of his total output in the victory over the Philippines.
Bahrain, which fell to an even 1-1 slate, could do nothing the moment China raced to an early 32-11 lead.
Iran, Jordan take bounce back wins
In other scheduled matches on the third day of basketball competitions, Iran and Jordan finally broke through the win columns in Group B by defeating Chinese Taipei and Qatar, respectively.
Team Melli edged out the Taiwanese, 72-69, behind the 18 points of veteran Mohammad Jamshidi, while the Falcons leaned on the 20 points of Levon Buford to shackle the Qataris, 76-65.
The turn of events created a four-way logjam in the group, with all four teams carrying similar 1-1 records going to their final scheduled games on Sunday.
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