Basketball: Defending champions settle for fifth

Defending champions Korea finished fifth in the Asian Games basketball tournament following an 87-76 win over Japan at Sport City on Thursday. Korea held a healthy 49-29 lead at half time.

But, Japan staged a second-half fight back and moved to within five points at one stage, only for the Koreans to hold on in the last quarter to win by 11 points.

Korea's Kim Joo Sung topped the scoring with 30 points, while Ryota Sakurai scored 18 for Japan. Reflecting on the tournament as a whole, Korea's coach Choi Bu Yung said, "We have a lot of young players. Our goal was to change the generation of the team rather than to be the top of the games. So our goal was to be in the top four. But we had disappointing matches against Iran and Jordan. In the beginning I worried a lot, but as time was passing by, we improved."

After the game, Japan's coach Kimikazu Suzuki said, "In our quarterfinal match against Iran and yesterday's game against Chinese Taipei everyone shot and played hard, but today they laid-back against Korea. They just watched on defence and there was no offence."

15th Asian Games, Doha 2006