China bounce back to rout Malaysia, Iran beat South Korea

Defending champion China bounced back from their Thursday's loss to thrash Malaysia 113-22, while Hamed Haddadi scored 15 of his 30 points in the final quarter to lift Iran over South Korea 76-56 on Friday at the 27th Asian men's basketball championship.

China suffered a 63-59 defeat against arch-rivals South Korea in their opening match to start their title campaign. But they quickly recovered with a dominant performance against Malaysia. Rookie Wang Zhelin led with a match-high 21 points and eight rebounds.

China played without former NBA player Yi Jianlian, who's still dealing with a hamstring injury, but four players scored in double figures to power China.

Wang Zhizhi, who only played three minutes on Thursday, added 17 and Zhu Fangyu and Guo Ailun both scored 16 points.

The Chinese team, who made 14 three-point attempts but buried none in Thursday match, were 12-of-26 in today's match. Zhu's four three-pointers led the team.

China will play against Iran in their final group match on Saturday, who they lost to in the final of 2009 at Tianjin, while South Korea face minnows Malaysia, who scored only 47 points in two matches.

Haddadi had an unstoppable performance in the final period of the match against South Korea, as the former NBA player poured in 15 points in a variety of moves underneath the basket including a couple of beautiful plays with point guard Mahdi Kamrany, who dished out a game-high nine assists.

Haddadi also grabbed a match-high 13 rebounds. Samad Nikkhah Bahrami chipped in 23 points, 12 of which cam from the third quarter.

In Friday's other matches, Bahrain suffered their second overtime loss in two days as they were beat 79-76 by Kazakhstan and India defeated Thailand 89-65 to seize their first win in Group D.

Chinese Taipei beat Saudi Araba 90-67 to top Group A and the host Philippines came from behind to beat Jordan 77-71.

In Group B, Hong Kong, China lost their opening match 76-59 to Japan, who secured the top place in the group.