China defeated their first opponent Cote d'Ivoire 70-55 in their first game at the FIBA Basketball World Cup at the Cadillac Arena (formerly Wukesong Culture & Sports Center) in Beijing on Saturday. Guo Ailun scored 17 points and nine assists to make the biggest contribution to China's victory.

China sent Guo Ailun, Zhao Jiwei, Zhai Xiaochuan, Yi Jianlian and Zhou Qi as their starting-lineup. Though four of them were probably the best players coach Li Nan could send, China failed to gain any advantage in the first two quarters, which ended 29-29.

Defensively, China were doing okay by limiting Cote d'Ivoire's points under 30. It was the team's offense that went wrong – one word to describe China's offense in the first 15 minutes: stuffy. Though Chinese guards kept calling screens by their big men, they were always slow to make decisions – pass, penetrate or shoot – not to mention that the screens themselves were not good enough. As a result, though both Chinese players and the ball kept moving around the court, they failed to change the opponent's defense and could not stretch out the space in offense.

By contrast, Cote d'Ivoire's players were very determined with their game by going for offensive rebounds and firing from the three-point line. Though their three-point and field goal rates were both under 35 percent, the team remained dynamic in both offense and defense, pinning China down for some time.

What China needed most was an accelerator who could change the team's atmosphere with unreasonable but effective performance. Guo Ailun was China's answer. The 25-year-old guard began to aim at Cote d'Ivoire's big men for penetrating in screen plays, claiming six points and one assist in four minutes. Guo's performance woke up his teammates and prepared China for the counterpunch in the second half.

Since Chinese players found the correct way to play, it's bad news for Cote d'Ivoire in the second half. In defense, China reduced risky double-teaming and kept their big men under the rim, forcing the opponent to shoot in the middle-range – again, Cote d'Ivoire's players have not been known for good shooting. In offense, every guy on the court kept assaulting Cote d'Ivoire's basket, which worked well enough to raise China's FG rate from 42 percent to 52 percent. The host turned the situation around in the third quarter with a 22-12.

Despite several controversial calls by the referees in the fourth quarter, China steadily expanded their lead before pocketing a win, gaining an advantage in the competitions of Group A.

In a game that had ended earlier, Serbia, one of the biggest champion candidates of the World Cup, claimed an easy win of 105-59 over Angola at the Foshan International Sports and Cultural Center in the south China city of Foshan.

Having declared earlier that Nemanja Bjelica will not play in their first game, Serbia's head coach Aleksandar Djordjevic even benched their No. 1 star Nikola Jokic, an act that showed how confident Serbia was.

They had good reasons to be so. Serbia's starting center Boban Marjanovic, a 2.2-meter-tall, 132-kilograms-heavy monster, made Angola's players dismiss the idea of assaulting Serbia's paint by simply standing under the rim. Instead, Angola had to bet on their three-pointers as one of the few solutions in offense and, honestly, their performance was not bad: the team buried six three-pointers at a rate of 42.86 percent after the first two quarters.

However, if you take a look at the scoreboard, you found that Angola trailed by 18 points (50-32) after the first half.

So what happened? Serbia did three things right. First, the team did a lot of screen plays with their big men, so Marjanovic and others often drove towards the rim instead of staying in the paint, waiting to be double-teamed. Second, when the big men were double-teamed, they could always fin open teammates outside. By the way, Serbia made eight three-pointers in the first two quarters at a rate of over 72 percent. Third, when Marjanovic has the ball near the basket, he is unstoppable, not in the NBA and certainly not in the FIBA competitions.

As Angola could not maintain their three-point rate in the second half, the game was long gone. The following numbers might help you understand how brutal this game was. Serbia won 103-56, led in rebounds 37-18, assists 32-7, free throws 20-9 and three-pointers 13-8. Bogdan Bogdanovic dropped the court's highest 24 points by going five for seven from the three-point line. Marjanovic had a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds. Jokic played 22 minutes to get 14 points, five rebounds and six assists.

The other six games on Saturday:

Poland 80-69 Venezuela

Russia 82-77 Nigeria

Puerto Rico 83-81 Iran

Philippines 62-108 Italy

Argentina 95-69 South Korea

Spain 101-62 Tunisia