体坛英语资讯：Chinese team says getting better at basketball worlds

China's national team said they played better at the second game in the 2010 FIBA World Championships by overcoming their shortcomings by defeating Cote d 'Ivoire 83-73 on Sunday.

The Chinese team had realized its deficiencies in the first game with Greece and eliminated them, coach Bob Donewald told a press conference after overcoming Cote d'Ivoire to score its first victory at the basketball worlds.

Donewald said Washington Wizards forward Yi Jianlian, guard Liu Wei and former NBA player Wang Zhizhi did a good job of leadership after the 81-89 loss to Greece on Saturday to help the team play better on Sunday.

"Our mind set in this: get ready for every game, take them one in a time," Donewald told reporters, noting that Puerto Rico, which China faces on Tuesday, is a young and fairly strong team.

Yi said everyone in the team played with a right mind set of fighting and stayed focused.

"Our rebounds were not so good sometimes today, but we controlled the game well and all of us had a spirit to fight," he told reporters after the match.

Cote d'Ivoire's coach Randoald Dessarzin said his team lost the game it had supposed to win and was unable to challenge the tall players of China.

China lost to Greece 81-89 on Saturday. Cote d'Ivoire suffered a defeat to Turkey 47-86 and will take on Russia on Tuesday.