Chen Jianghua scored 24 points and led China to overcome Japan 124-94 in Beijing on Saturday in the 19th junior men's Asia Basketball Championship.

China, who overwhelmed Kyrgyzstan 105-41 on Friday, will face Hongkong of China for their last group match Sunday afternoon.

China once built a 24-9 lead in the first quarter, but Japan, thanks to its three-pointers and efficient offenses, successfully cut the deficit to three points by the end of the first half.

However, the third quarter utterly became a one-sided contest. Chen, who just returned from the 2006 World Championship in Japan, showed his talent to his Japanese counterparts.

Chen grabbed 11 points in this quarter and helped China to pull away. His brilliant performance astonished the Japanese team, which was forced to more turnovers compared with the previous two quarters.

"I played well tonight, but not good enough," Chen said after the match. "I am trying hard to recover from the tough games in the World Championship, and I believe I will give the audience better performances in the following matches."

Kosuke Kanamaru, the Japanese captain, said, "China is no doubt one of the best team in Asia, which has really strong inside so that they can grab much more rebounds. We also had too many turnovers in the second half, and China's Chen is such a great player that we are pretty much impressed."

Source: Xinhua