Dongguan Marco Polo swept Shandong Flaming Bulls to be the first
team entering the semifinals of the Chinese Basketball Association
(CBA) league on Sunday.
Dongguan defeated the regular-season No.3 team by 111-97 at home
to win the best-of-five series 3-0.
Regular-season winner Guangdong Hongyuan survived a 112-108
overtime victory over Zhejiang Guangsha to get another last-four
berth.
Guangdong will meet Dongguan in the semifinals.
Point guard Chen Jianghua ended Guangsha's last hope with a
lay-up in the last minute in overtime to give Guangdong a 110-108
lead.
Guangsha trailed seven points after tying the regular time by
101-101.
Rodney White led Guangsha by 34 points and nine rebounds, while
Wang Shipeng led Guangdong by 28 points.
Li Nan buried a go-ahead lay-up with 13.8 seconds to go and Wang
Zhizhi made a crucial block on Olumide Oyedeji's last attempt to
give Bayi Fubang a 95-94 victory over Liaoning Hunters.
This was the third time the series match was decided by one
point, the first two were won by Liaoning, with Game 4 and a
possible Game 5 to be played on Liaoning's home court.
Leading by as many as 25 points, Bayi let the visitors climb up
in the fourth quarter on 87-87 with 5:06 minutes left and trailed
94-93 after Liu Xiangtao chipped in a 3-pointer with 27 seconds to
go.
No team had ever won the best-of-five series after being down by
2-0 and Bayi entered the finals 12 times in its 13 playoffs in the
league history.
Jiangsu Dragons led another series by 2-1 after beating Fujian
SBS 110-102.
(Xinhua News Agency?January 21, 2008)