CBA's second phase has entered its final sprint stage. On January 21st, Beijing time, the last six matches of the 33rd round were completed. This night saw no upsets, with three teams suffering significant losses in what could be called "tragedies," and one team losing both the game and their composure. However, the team that suffered the most and was the most regrettable was undoubtedly Beijing BAIC. This night, they were the biggest losers and also became the stepping stone for Guangsha's 10-game winning streak.
With a score of 94 to 91, Beijing narrowly lost at home to Guangsha, painfully suffering their third consecutive defeat. In this match, Beijing BAIC played quite tenaciously. Zeng Fanbo returned, and Xu Limin shortened the team's rotation, with nine main players rotating throughout the game to battle Guangsha fiercely. In the first quarter, Beijing once trailed Guangsha by 15 points, and at halftime, Beijing continued to trail Guangsha by 12 points. Beijing made a strong push in the third quarter, with Solomon leading the charge as Beijing scored 28-16 in a single quarter to fill the hole dug in the first half. In the fourth quarter, Beijing managed to overtake the score three times, but ultimately failed due to Fang Shuo dragging the team down once again.
In the last 26 seconds of the fourth quarter, trailing Guangsha by one point, Beijing threw an inbound pass. Fang Shuo failed to make the pass on his first attempt and called a timeout himself. On the second attempt, Xu Limin still had Fang Shuo make the pass, which resulted in Fang Shuo being directly intercepted by Sun Minghui. It can be said that Beijing lost the game on this one play.
This was not the first time Fang Shuo had made a throwing error that cost the team this season. The last time the two teams met, it was also Fang Shuo who made a fatal throwing violation in the final stages of the game, directly ending Beijing's hopes for a comeback. Unexpectedly, Xu Limin did not learn from the previous lesson (in the last minute, Xu Limin replaced Zeng Fanbo with Fang Shuo).
After Beijing's three consecutive defeats, their ranking in the second phase was nailed down at ninth place, falling three points behind Qingdao, Liaoning, Xinjiang, and Guangdong. This night, Guangsha was the winner, and Guangdong was also the winner. In this round, Guangdong visited Tongxi and won a crushing victory by 18 points with a score of 112-94. Du Feng's strategic planning and precise timeouts and substitutions at the right moments repeatedly thwarted Tongxi's momentum.
There were three key contributors to Guangdong's victory: firstly, Bazley, who contributed multiple spectacular dunks, scoring 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks; secondly, Jilunwater, who repeatedly punished Tongxi's interior with individual plays, scoring 39 points, 13 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks; and thirdly, Xu Jie, who supported the team's backcourt offense, playing 44 minutes with a wrist injury, shooting 10 out of 16 for 23 points, 6 rebounds, and 13 assists, with a personal plus-minus value as high as +23, once again delivering legendary statistics.
The second tragedy occurred in the match between Xinjiang and Qingdao. Qingdao, who had been performing well recently, visited Xinjiang's devilish home court and suffered a crushing defeat by 20 points with a score of 83-103. There were two reasons for Qingdao's defeat: firstly, their big foreign aid, Mickey, was absent due to an ankle sprain, leaving Qingdao without a powerful inside player. Moreover, their third foreign aid, Smith, was also ineffective, meaning Qingdao faced Xinjiang with only one foreign aid against three.
Mickey's absence left Yang Hanshen at a disadvantage when facing Li Yanze and Lawson, scoring only 8 points and 6 rebounds in 13 attempts. Li Yanze and Lawson combined for 27 points and 20 rebounds, clocking out early.
Secondly, Qingdao's perimeter completely fizzled out. Facing Xinjiang's intense man-to-man defense, Qingdao shot a dismal 7 out of 39 from beyond the arc, with a shooting percentage of less than 20%. How could they not lose?
Qingdao's 20-point loss to Xinjiang was understandable, but Sichuan's 42-point defeat to Shanghai was somewhat unjustified, especially since it was at home. Of course, in this match, Sichuan seemed to have no intention of fighting to the death, as Shanghai had recently lost to Liaoning and Shanxi and was harboring a lot of anger. Han Shuo rested Samna again, giving the opportunity to the underperforming number two pick, Fang Jiachen, effectively surrendering in advance. Throughout the game, Sichuan only matched Shanghai in the first quarter, being completely dominated in the other three quarters, trailing by 12 points at halftime and the gap widening to 24 points after three quarters;
In the fourth quarter, Sichuan gave up and let Hunter play freely, losing another 22-40 to Shanghai in the final quarter, resulting in a crushing defeat of 87-129, their fourth consecutive loss, basically eliminating them from playoff contention in advance.
In this match, Shanghai rotated 12 players, with everyone contributing points. Lofton didn't exert much effort but easily scored 11 points, 15 rebounds, and 6 assists. Li Tianrong scored 12 points and 5 rebounds, Wang Zhelin scored 12 points and 9 rebounds, and Li Hongquan had the hottest hand, shooting 10 out of 15 for 26 points and 4 rebounds.
After discussing the three tragedies, let's talk about the match where Shanxi defeated Guangzhou 124-116. The battle between these two teams was also fierce, with both Shanxi and Guangzhou committing a large number of fouls. The two teams combined for a total of 64 fouls and 80 free throws, making the game rhythm fragmented. To prove that he is still the best local point guard in the CBA, Guo Ailun regained his form from the past, scoring 27 points, 6 rebounds, and 12 assists (15 points in the fourth quarter), impeccable on both offense and defense. Previous games have shown that as long as Guo Ailun is present, Guangzhou has the ability to compete with most of the league's top teams. In this battle, Guangzhou did not collapse like before after three quarters but fought Shanxi fiercely for 47 minutes before finally determining the outcome.
However, perhaps unwilling to accept defeat, in the last 22 seconds of the fourth quarter, Guangzhou, trailing Shanxi by 8 points and already unable to turn the tide, continued to follow the fine tradition left by Guo Shiqiang, maintaining full-court pressure on Shanxi. At this point, Shanxi was already reluctant to attack. Jia Mingru was fouled while being double-teamed by Guangzhou, and after being fouled, the former Guangzhou player Jia Mingru flexed his muscles twice towards the Guangzhou bench and even took a buzzer-beating three-pointer in the last 2.8 seconds, further upsetting Guangzhou and setting the stage for a post-match conflict between the two teams.
This conflict was divided into two halves. In the post-match handshake ceremony, Guangzhou did not shake hands, with half the team wanting to confront Jia Mingru but were stopped in time by the referees and Shanxi players. In the second half, after Shanxi returned to the locker room for a meeting, Guangzhou players mobilized to attack Shanxi, but fortunately, they were stopped in time by coach Michel, preventing a larger conflict.
After 33 rounds, how does the latest standings look? Guangsha, with a 10-game winning streak, accumulated 62 points and remained at the top. Shanxi, with a 4-game winning streak and 57 points, followed closely behind. Shandong (56 points) and Zhejiang (55 points), who won this round, ranked third and fourth respectively. And Guangdong, with a 9-game winning streak and 55 points, overtook teams with the same points as Xinjiang, Liaoning, and Qingdao, rising three places overnight to fifth.
Currently, Guangdong is just a step away from the top four. In their next two regular-season matches, Guangdong will face Shanghai and Guangzhou. If they can defeat Shanghai and Guangzhou to achieve an 11-game winning streak, Guangdong's chances of breaking into the top four are very real. Xu Jie's wrist injury is not serious, and Bazley has found confidence in his individual play in the match against Tongxi. The performance of these two will determine the success or failure of Guangdong in the next round. On the contrary, Xu Xin may not be too important, considering Shanghai has many outside shooters, and Guangdong must improve their switching speed to defeat Shanghai.
Liaoning's ranking dropped three places from the previous round to seventh, and Qingdao dropped three places to eighth. Liaoning's next opponent will be an away challenge against Zhejiang Guangsha, which will be another tough battle. Given Liaoning's current injury situation and the state of their main players, it will be quite difficult to win. Qingdao's opponent is Sichuan, which should