Shanxi 119, Shanghai 108: Marcus Williams and Charles Gaines continue to go ham on the Chinese Basketball Association. After combining for 74 on Wednesday, they’ve topped themselves by racking up an unbelievable 81 points in a win over the Shanghai Sharks (44 for Williams, 37 for Gaines). This was a big game for both teams… In winning, Shanxi moved into 4th place. In losing, Shanghai dropped out of the playoff picture. The good news for Shanghai is that three of their five remaining games are against bad teams and another one is against Zhejiang, one of the teams they’re battling with.
Dongguan 107, Liaoning 94: The Liaoning Dinosaurs have managed to choke their way out of the playoff picture. Josh Powell, who’s been missing in action lately, came up with just 4 points and 3 boards in 16 minutes of play. Rodney Carney dropped 25 and some dude named Li Xiaoxu put up 22/19, but all that matters at this point is that it was their third loss in a row. As for Dongguan, they’re still hanging out in third place. Shavlik Randolph had a monster game of 35 points and 16 rebounds today.
Beijing 122, Tianjin 112: Beijing is on a four-game win streak, which is easily their longest since beginning the season 13-0 (it’s currently second-longest in the CBA as well). Stephon Marbury nearly had a triple-double with 33/9/8 while Randolph Morris posted 32. Donnell Harvey exploded for 43 and 20–his fourth 30/10 in a row–but Tianjin’s brief two-game win streak still came to an end.
Zhejiang 121, Shandong 115: This one never should’ve been a game, but Zhejiang allowed Shandong to come back from down 20 in the third and take it all the way to OT. They’re lucky that Alan Anderson, who had a game-high 54 big ones, missed what would’ve been the game-winning jumper at the regulation buzzer. Anderson had already exploded for something like 12 consecutive Shandong points as they went on a 30-9 run that took it from 47-67 to 77-76. The game ended up tied at 108 with 35 seconds to go… Zhejiang had the ball and the Crowd was ready to explode as JR Smith prepared to take his man off the dribble. He released a jump shot but rimmed it out. Anderson got the rebound and proceeded to miss his aforementioned jumper, and it went to overtime. I guess Shandong had simply run out of gas at that point… Zhejiang went on a 13-2 run and that was that. Although Zhejiang eventually did come up with the big win they needed to get back in the playoff picture… I can’t say I was very impressed. JR’s team-high 41 came on 29 shots; many of which were pretty bad (4-14 from three).
Bayi 116, Foshan 106: Bayi picks up their second win in a row after five consecutive losses. Wang Lei led the Rockets in scoring with 29 on 11-15 from the floor while Wang Zhizhi collected a game-high 10 boards to go along with 17 points of his own. Marcus Haislip had 24/5 for Foshan, who are currently the league’s worst team–they’re riding a streak of eight losses in a row.
Fujian 109, Jilin 96: After playing just 14 minutes in their last game, Cartier Martin didn’t play at all for Jilin. I’m not sure if he’s hurt or if the 12th-place team has simply given up (NiuBball.com is pretty much the only place to go for this sort of information and they have not reported an injury). Either way his absence made it extra easy for Fujian to improve to 16-12… good enough for 5th place by a half game.
Qindago 97, Jiangsu 92: Eleventh-place Qindago keeps themselves afloat with a win over Jackson Vroman and company. Vroman finished with 25 and 20, but, as usual, his big numbers didn’t translate into a victory for the league’s second-worst team. Lester Hudson led Qindago with a modest 27 points.
Xinjiang 99, Guangsha 69: Damn Wilson… 10 points and 8 rebounds? What the hell happened? Guangsha could’ve been tied for 4th had they won, but, as you can see, they lost by f@cking 30 points. Now they’re tied for 6th instead, and one of the teams they’re tied with is Xinjiang. Big choke. Tim Pickett led the Flying Tigers with 35 and 10.
