China ended Japan's five-title winning streak in the FIBA Women's Asia Cup final in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday and won their first championship of the tournament in 12 years.

As the head coach of the Chinese national team, Zheng Wei is proud of her players' performances but believes that they can still do better.

"In fact, I don't think our team had the best offense in the Asia Cup this time," Zheng said in an interview with China Media Group (CMG). But we have been doing better and better on the defensive end, especially in implementing the tactics. The team pushed themselves to the extreme to make up for their offensive flaws."

China didn't send their best squad to the Asia Cup as they missed Li Yueru, Huang Sijing and Wu Tongtong due to injuries. In spite of her confidence in the team, Zheng, at the beginning, thought the team had at best a 50 percent chance to win the title.

"I just prepared for every game at the beginning and didn't even think about the final," Zheng said. "I just focused on our next opponents. There was Australia after South Korea. Then there was Japan after Australia."

Zheng revealed that the Chinese national team didn't have much time for coordination. After the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup last year, players went back to their clubs to compete in the leagues.

"We have recruited many new players this year, and they needed time to understand the new offensive and defensive systems," Zheng told CMG. "It's a completely new challenge for them and a daunting task to do. We overcame the difficulties one by one and tried to get familiar with each other in every game."

Zheng mentioned that multiple key players of the team were battling injuries in the Asia Cup, including Wang Siyu and Yang Liwei. "They really overcame a lot of difficulties. These players are so resilient. They saw a chance and then fought all the way until the end," Zheng said in the interview.

Zheng is happy with what the team has achieved, but she wants the players to look deeper into the future. "The moment we walked off the podium, we put everything in the past to start over completely," she said.