During the pre-game shooting drills on Saturday, Tokyo Apache guard Darin Satoshi Maki walked over to the courtside press table to greet a few reporters. Then he said, "You came to see the Great Wall."
He was, of course, referring to China's Sun Ming Ming, the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix's 236-cm starting center.
In the end, what the 2,453 spectators saw was an old-fashioned blowout victory. The Phoenix humiliated the Apache 118-78 in the series opener at Ariake Colosseum and improved to 3-0 against Tokyo.