Anthony Ronaldson missed a three-pointer at the buzzer as China held on for a dramatic 84-82 victory over Australia at FIBA's Diamond Ball Tournament on Sunday.

China, looking for respectability on the international stage, earned some against the Boomers as both sides warmed up for the Athens Olympics in a tough encounter.

Del Harris' squad received another dominating performance from Yao Ming. The Houston Rockets center had 28 points, 24 hours after scoring 21 against Serbia & Montenegro.

China led by as many as 15 points against the Aussies but the outcome hung in the balance until the very end.

China were in front by a single point when Martin Cattalini fouled Li Nan with six seconds remaining.

After an Australia time-out, the Chinese player converted just one of two from the line for a two-point cushion.

Brian Goorjian's team inbounded the ball and got it into the hands of Ronaldson, but his shot from long range was off the mark.

Yao was virtually unstoppable, making eight of his 11 field goal attempts.

The only area in which he seemed to struggle was at the free throw line where he made 12 of 17.

The team from Down Under look to have a bona fide star in the making in Matthew Nielsen.

The Australian National Basketball League player, who could be set to launch an NBA career next season after spending part of the summer with the Denver Nuggets, had 24 points.

He was 10 of 19 from the field, including one of three from behind the arc.

Australian captain Shane Heal had 18 points on six three-pointers.

The Chinese had their own specialist from three-point land. Zhu Fangyu drained five of his six attempts from behind the arc and finished with 19 points.

Determined Angola

In the other game on Sunday, Lithuania - supposed to be a serious threats to Team USA's hegemony in the Olympics - beat Angola 84-68.

The European champions overcame a determined African team in the new Belgrade Arena, getting contributions from almost every member of the team but by no means was this easy.

On this occasion it was the twin brother of national team center Ksistof Lavrinovic who helped propel them to victory. Darjus Lavrinovic, the less celebrated of the two 24-year-olds but a fiery competitor nonetheless who plays his club basketball with Lithuanian giants Zalgiris Kaunas, poured in a game-high 15 points to pace the Baltic side.

Point guard Sarunas Jasikevicius, the most valuable player of last summer's Eurobasket, had 13 points while veteran Saulius Stombergas chipped in 12 and Sacramento Kings star Darius Songaila added 10 for the winners.

Jasikevicius and Stombergas were a combined six of 10 from three-point range for Lithuania, who had six other players on the scoresheet. Tau Ceramica's Arvydas Macijauskas was among them with nine points.

Lithuania recently won two of their three games in the Acropolis Tournament, falling to a late shot against Greece for their only defeat and for a while in this contest it looked as if they were about to blow a big lead.

They jumped on top early, leading 27-18 after the opening quarter before stretching that to a 12-point advantage at half-time (45-33).

The lead ballooned to 18 points but Angola have been resilient in their Olympic warm-up games this summer - they lost 67-63 to Argentina on Saturday - so it was no surprise that Mario Palma's side battled back in the third quarter.

They went on a 13-0 run and ultimately left Lithuania clinging to a four-point lead but the Europeans regained the initiative and pulled away in the fourth quarter.

Lithuania coach Antanas Sireika said: "We've tried some new things in our play, and that's normal in this phase of preparations.

"Still, I'm not real satisfied with our performance today. Some details were good, some of them very bad, but we have enough time to correct that before the Olympic games."

"We didn't play the best basketball we can, that's for sure," said Stombergas. "But we weren't bad. We are working hard these days and we'll be in best shape at Olympics."

Victor Muzadi led Angola with 13 points while Antonio Carvalho had 12. "We lost because we made too many mistakes," said Angola boss Palma.

(China Daily August 3, 2004)