A pressure defense coupled with a strong performance by Sofoklis Schortsianitis lifted unbeaten Greece to a 95-64 rout of China and a berth in the quarterfinals of the World Championships.

Theo Papaloukas scored 19 points and spearheaded the defense for Greece (6-0), which next faces France in Wednesday's round of eight. In the Eurobasket 2005 semifinals, Greece upset France en route to the championship.

Yao, the 7-5 superstar center of the Houston Rockets, came into the contest leading the tournament in scoring at 28.4 points per game. But he was limited to 10 points and eight rebounds partially by the 6-9 Schortsianitis, whose wide body bothered Yao.

Schortsianitis showed his performance in the Group C win over Turkey was no fluke. In just under 15 minutes, he made all three of his shots and was 4-of-7 at the free-throw line.

Early in the fourth quarter, Schortsianitis was on his way to a rim-rocking dunk when Yao intervened and hit him on the arm, forcing him to the line. Shortly thereafter, he showed great footwork and went past Yao for a thunderous two-handed jam that may have sent tremors to Athens.

"We were able to recover from a poor start, when we were cold shooting and got better from the second quarter onwards," Schortsianitis said. "In the second half, we got our rhythm going and were able to extend our lead and get a great win."

Coming off its stunning buzzer victory over Slovenia in Group D, China began quickly and opened an 8-0 lead as Greece missed its first nine shots. The European champions still trailed, 23-11, early in the second quarter before Papaloukas led a pressure defense that outscored the Chinese, 30-13, over the last 9:19 of the first half to take the lead for good.

Papaloukas attacked the basket and teamed with Dimitris Diamantidis and Vasilis Spanoulis to pressure China's guards which led to so many mistakes for the Asian champions.

Greece forced 12 first-half turnovers and 24 overall. When China did manage to hold onto the ball, it often was forced into bad shots.

"In the first minutes, it seemed we had prepared well for the game, but after the first quarter we played very badly on offense against a full-court press, and made one turnover after the other," China coach Jonas Kazlauskas said.

"The team that makes more mistakes will lose the game, and we made fewer mistakes," Greece coach Panagiotis Yannakis said.

"This was the key for us, because we knew against China we need to be more careful, because if Yao can get the ball, he can score very easily. So we needed to play basketball on the floor."