Using an overwhelming height advantage, China dominated under the basket and exploited frequently sloppy play by the African champions for easy baskets.

Yao drilled 10 of 11 field goals for 91 per cent shooting, matched by 10 of 11 from the free throw line. Sun Yue added 11 points for China, sinking all four of his field goals, including two three pointers.

Joaquim Gomes had 17 points to lead Angola.

Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey Nets seemed to come alive for the first time in the tournament, stuffing several big jams and grabbing 10 defensive rebounds. That won him a rare note of approval fromChina coach Jonas Kazlauskas.

"I'm think he still hasn't found a good chemistry with Yao. This isn't easy. But today much better," Kazlauskas said. The Lithuanian-born Kazlauskas said he'd been concerned before the game by China's earlier later-period collapses against the United States and Spain. After China appeared to wobble in the second quarter, he sat the team down for a firm locker room talk at halftime and "all better," he said.

China (1-2) plays Germany on Thursday and Greece Saturday.

Angola remain winless in the tournament.

In earlier games on Thursday, Brad Newley scored 24 points to lead Australia to a 106-68 win against Iran. Los Angeles Lakers center Pau Gasol had 13 points in Spain's 72-59 victory against Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki and Germany.

Nowitzki scored 11 points for Germany.

A controversial photo involving Spain's men's basketball team seemed to be no distraction for the world champions.

There was no indication Spain had been affected by criticisms of an ad running in Spanish newspapers showing all 15 members of the team using their fingers to apparently make their eyes look more Chinese.

A spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday called the photo ‘clearly inappropriate’, but said the team had intended no offence and apologised.

The OCA, an organization representing Asian-Pacific Americans, also found the photo disturbing.

Spain's coach Aito Garcia said he had had nothing to do with the ad and had not even seen the photo. But he grew testy when pressed by a reporter on whether the controversy had posed a distraction to his players.

"I can't understand this. Who's discussing this? You're discussing this," Garcia said at a postgame news conference.

The controversy hasn't been reported in China's entirely state-owned media and Chinese fans at the 18,000-seat Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium cheered for both teams during the game with no sign of anti-Spanish sentiment.

Gasol said yesterday the photo had "supposed to be funny or something but never offensive in any way."

"I'm sorry if anybody thought or took it the wrong way and thought that it was offensive," he said.

On Thursday, Spanish guard Jose Manuel Calderon suggested the issue had been blown out of proportion.