The bitter memory of their 102-100 overtime loss in 2002, which ended hopes of five gold medals in a row, has been partially erased after reclaiming the crown.
Qatar can wear their silver medals with immense pride, having vastly improved on the Gulf State's previous best Asian Games finish of ninth.
If it had not been for Wang Zhizhi Qatar may have won gold in the lowest-scoring gold match in Asian Games history. The 7ft centre was head and shoulders above everyone else on the court. He scored nearly half of China's points and with 28 next to his name at the finish he was the man of the match, if not the tournament.
When Wang was not draining three-pointers the 27 year-old marshalled the Chinese defence like a military general. The sellout stadium full of noisy young Qatari fans did not get the grandstand finish it desired as the hosts, perhaps a little nervous, always struggled playing catch-up.
Qatar mounted a mini revival in the third quarter after they trailed 34-25 at half time. Daoud Mousa Daoud got three points and then two more to reduce arrears after the break to just 38-32. Daoud added another triple as Qatar briefly threatened a shock. He scored eight and was probably the men in maroon's best player.
However a few moments later, a three pointer by Li Nan kept the hosts at arm's length at 43-37. Man of the match Wang added four more points to China's total to make it 47-39 with just the final 10 minutes remaining.
Qatar could not dig out the three pointers when they needed them as China's class prevailed and the match drew to its inevitable conclusion. Team China wrapped up a successful Doha 2006 with its 165th gold medal.
Wang said afterwards: "Our coach analysed Qatar's defence, offence and their cooperation, and we didn't give them opportunities to hit three-point shots.
"Some of our young players were playing in such an important game for the first time so they are not familiar with [the pressure] but they played better and better."Â
Two members of China's population are about to get very lucky. "I will give the gold to my parents,"Â said Wang.
Qatar's Saad Abdulrahman Ali was pleased with his team's efforts in keeping China to a low score: "Of course we tried to get gold. Every team works to get the gold medal. I want to thank my teammates because we all did a great job.
"The Chinese are world champs, they have very big and strong guys. Number 14 [Wang] was really good today. Defensively we held the rest of the team really well, if you can hold China in the 50s that means defensively you are doing good as a team. We didn't make easy shots.
"We need to work on our offensive game, handling and dribbling the ball, basically on the little things. I think defensively we are pretty strong."Â They certainly are, and skilled defending was very much to the fore in this match, which was the lowest-scoring final since 1966 when Israel beat Thailand 90-42 in Bangkok.
Qatar coach Joseph Stiebing III was magnanimous in defeat, congratulating his opponents and saying Wang had been the difference between the sides.
He said: "I want to congratulate China, they played a great game, they defended us well and had a great player playing, an ex-NBA player [Wang]. We defended them as well as we could, but in the end they were the better team. My guys did what we asked of them but China had a great man.
"Wang makes some tough shots. We defended him well for a while, but when you are 7ft you can shoot over people and make some tough shots. That's the reason he has been playing in the NBA (National Basketball Association in the United States] for a number of years.
"I was really pleased for the people; the Games have been spectacular and well received."Â
China coach Jonas Kazlauskas, who gave tactical instructions to his team through a translator during timeouts and breaks, said: "I am very happy with the team. I think the final was really good basketball. We played extremely well, generally we controlled situations on the court and we built good defence. Wang and the others did their job and we needed to win and I am very pleased for them.
"Wang is the most experienced player from our team; he was in the highest level of the NBA. For him it's good to take shots most of the time and he controlled situations when we had our opponents under the basket.
"Our opponents fought much of the time but we seemed to be too good. We don't want to think about it right now, but next for us is Beijing, but we must celebrate. "Â
15th Asian Games, Doha 2006
Posted December 17th, 2006 by COBA
