The CBA Playoffs are upon us! All four first-round matchups tipped off today, with the lower seed getting the first home game. That struck me as being a little odd, but the higher seeds got all the Ws anyway. Oops, I guess that was a bit of a spoiler. Oh well.
[3] Shanxi 90, [6] Shanghai 85: This is the playoff opener that I elected to watch, and let me assure you that it was a rather unusual contest. Well, now that I think about it, maybe it wasn’t so unusual. It certainly went along with one of my favorite sayings–basketball is a game of runs.
The first run was made by Shanxi, who got typical, efficient production from Marcus Williams in the early going. Shanghai caught up quickly, though, and took a 27-25 lead to the second quarter thanks to a timely Marcus Landry bucket. Mike Harris almost seemed to feed of off of his team’s new-found momentum as he outperformed his counterpart, Charles Gaines, throughout that second quarter. Shanghai actually held the CBA’s highest-scoring team to just 13 points in the period, and they went into the break with a six-point advantage.
Shanxi came out of the locker room looking like a new team, though… they pushed the ball as they scored the first 7 points of the third, and Charles Gaines began to outplay Mike Harris. As Ma Kan drove to the basket for a big-time dunk, and Marcus Williams scored an easy layup in transition, Shanxi built their lead well into double digits. The game turned out to be far from over, though. Shanxi gave up three offensive rebounds on one fourth-quarter possession, and proceeded to commit a careless turnover on the next. Sh!t like that will have a double-digit lead cut down to four points before you know it… and sure enough, there were the Shanghai Sharks, down just 79-83 with two and a half to play. Shanghai’s Liu Wei scored 8 of his 13 points in the final few minutes, but he’d end up missing the three-pointer that would’ve tied the game with seconds to go. Charles Gaines hit a freethrow and that was that.
One key event that I left out of all ^that was what appeared to be a technical foul on Marcus Williams, but I’m honestly not even sure if that’s what happened. I couldn’t understand what the commentators were saying, obviously, and I don’t know if I got the complete gist of sh!t. Anyway, Mike Harris ended up with a pair of what appeared to be technical freethrows, and Shanghai got the ball out on the side. This is the series of events that led up to that potential game-tying three.
Marcus Williams, who was hot early on, finished up with a game-high 37. Charles Gaines ended up both out-scoring and out-boarding Mike Harris, 28-22 and 19-14. Marcus Landry scored just 15 on 5-13.
[1] Guangdong 115, [8] Fujian 97: Fujian actually had a six-point lead at the end of the first quarter, but next time I checked they were down like 15 or something. Guangdong got themselves rolling during 35-13 second quarter and never looked back from there. All-Star Wang Shipeng scored a team-high 24 while Will McDonald dropped 33 for Fujian. The Sturgeons were forced to play without Anthony Roberson, who seems to be struggling through some sort of lingering injury. I’m not sure what his status is for game two. Aaron Brooks dropped 22 for Gaungdong… James Singleton added 13/12.
[2] Beijing 106, [7] Guangsha 103: Stephon Marbury went for a game-high 32 big ones to lead the Ducks past the Chandler-less Lions. Peter John Ramos dominated the paint with his 26 points and 20 rebounds, but he didn’t get quite enough help from Chandler’s replacement, Rodney White. White scored just 7 points in 36 minutes in his first game with Guangsha since 2010. I expect this series to be over quickly… it was kinda ruined by Wilson’s departure.
[5] Dongguan 101, [4] Xinjiang 95: Xinjiang came in hot, but they weren’t able to absorb 54 combined points from Shavlik Randolph (30) and Josh Akognon (24). Like Guangsha, Xinjiang had a new player for the postseason. That player is Ike Diogu, a former Clipper, Hornet, and Warriors. He’s known as a low-post scorer, but he provided just 19 points on 21 shots in this game. Tim Picket was similarly ineffective… he also had 19, but on 6-22. It’s a little puzzling to me that the Flying Tigers elected to replace Gani Lawal with Diogu at this particular point in time. They’d been rolling right along with Lawal.
