WCBA 9/2008 - Beijing 103, Zhejiang 73

When you're off to slow start like Beijing (4-5), sometimes you need someone to beat up on to get things going again. Zhejiang (0-9) was that team, sitting by itself at the bottom of the WCBA without a single win. Beijing, playing at home, had no trouble with the visitors, cruising to a 103-73 win at home.

The boxscore for the game is here.

Beijing led 25-17 and extended the lead to 54-38 at halftime. Ten minutes later, Beijing was leading 80-50 and I suspect that Beijing wasn't worried about a thirty point comeback by Zhejiang in the fourth quarter.

Beijing would shoot 57 percent from the field and hit eight 3-point shots. Zhejiang managed only 42 percent. Beijing remains a poor free-throw shooting team - they only hit 41 percent of their free throws - but when you outrebound your opponents 49 to 25, that and close to 60 percent shooting will bury any opponent.

Xu Li-Min, coach of the Beijing Great Wall, decided to spread the ball around. Not a single player had more than 30 minutes of play, and all 12 players on the roster got court time. Li Zhu got 10 points and 14 rebounds. Jennifer Lacy didn't start, but no matter - she got her 10 points (on 5 for 6 shootings) and picked up three rebounds of her own. Zhang Wei led all scorers with 19 points for Beijing.

As for Zhejiang, only three players scored in double figures. Cheng Po-Wen scored 27 points and 11 rebound to lead Zhejiang, and Shen Binbin scored 20 points and seven rebounds. Li Xing added 12 points.

Pictures will come when they can be found. In the meantime, I invite you to go to the Atlanta Dream website and look at some of the pictures Jennifer Lacy has posted from Beijing.