No excuse for China's poor performance vs Serbia in Olympic women's basketball, says 'Lebron Meng'

LILLE, France - Injuries and late preparation were no excuse for China's 81-59 defeat by Serbia in their women's basketball Group A clash on Wednesday, said 29-year-old Chinese shooting guard Li Meng, who has been compared to United States great Lebron James.

The crushing defeat was China's second of the tournament, following their 90-89 loss to Spain on Sunday.

"We worked very hard in the preparation period, many of us were injured - but we can't use that as an excuse when we lose, although there was a reason," said Li.

"We thought we prepared well, but after the games we felt we needed more," added the WNBA Washington Mystics player, who is known as "LeBron Meng" for her attacking style and 6-foot-5 (1.83 m) height.

Power forward Sijing Huang added that having all the team together just a week before the Olympics has not helped.

"We (have) not been able to work well as a team and deal with the competition as a whole," she said.

Serbia captain Tina Krajisnik said China's performance was not up to the level she had seen and admired at the 2022 World Cup, where they battled against Team USA to take silver.

"Their defense was off, we had so many easy layups and we took advantage of that - it was definitely not their best day today," Krajisnik said.

Serbia, meanwhile, had no shortage of injuries themselves, with Mina Djordjevic and Yvonne Anderson, who finished with an impressive 15 points and six assists, playing with broken noses.

China will face Puerto Rico on Saturday, with one last hope of reaching the quarterfinals if they can pick up enough points to finish in the top two third-placed teams in the group.

—Reuters