Yao takes center stage in China's victory over New Zealand

Center Yao Ming almost staged a one-man show on Tuesday by scoring 39 points to lead China to a 69-62 victory over New Zealand in the preliminary stage of the men's basketball event of the Athens Olympics.

The victory threw a lifeline to China which had to beat New Zealand to keep alive their hopes of making the quarterfinals of the Olympics.

Due to the presence of towering center Yao, China seemed to be a big mountain hard for New Zealand to scale.

New Zealand, who beat China to finish fourth in the 2002 world championships, tried to double-team Yao or many other tricks but to no avail.

"It is very difficult to defend against Yao. He is a physical force certainly not seen in New Zealand and not often around the world,"said New Zealand head coach Tab Baldwin.

Yao Ming, who stands at 2.26 meters tall, was the go-to guy in the first period for China, using his air advantage to score 10 points in the first period.

Building its tactics around Yao, China also organized a sound defense, forcing New Zealand to rely on three-pointers to keep themselves in the game.

New Zealand had to take the B plan to mark Yao with more players, only to leave space for other Chinese players to shoot.

New Zealand also tried to minimize the threat of Yao by keeping him out of the paint, but Yao still managed to get 6 points in the second period and inspired China to a 29-20 halftime lead.

New Zealand, thanks to their merit in scoring three pointers, bursted into a 12-2 run in the third period, threatening to level the tie for the first time in the game.

But Yao continued to be the major difference between China and New Zealand, contributing 21 points in the third period and remained the leading scorer on the field.

China, however, had yet to pull away clear as they led only 51-45 after the third period with New Zealand continuing to turn on pressure in the last period.

With 16.9 seconds remaining, China only led by four points, but China managed to hold back the charge by New Zealand and scored their first victory at Athens.

"I am proud of the way of my players responding to the high-pressure situation,"Chinese head coach Del Harris told reporters.

"If we had not won today, we would have at least a remote possibility of going beyond the preliminary stage.

Harris also praised Yao for his performance, saying that "he is a terrific guy".

But he thought the win was more a result of the teamwork rather than the individual effort by Yao.

"Offensively it was, but defensively I thought our team really did a nice job,"said Harris.