On January 22nd, Beijing time, the CBA "Spring Festival Battle" ushered in a focus match, with Guangdong Hongyuan facing Shanghai men's basketball team. After four quarters of competition, Guangdong suffered a crushing defeat to Shanghai with a score of 81-115, ending their nine-game winning streak. Contrary to external expectations, the game lost its suspense from the first half, as Shanghai's offense was relentless while Guangdong struggled like constipation. Adding to the woes, Du Feng's self-destruction, due to an argument with foreign aid Jilunwote, led to his DNP (Did Not Play), prematurely abandoning the game, resulting in another crushing defeat for Guangdong against Shanghai. It is worth noting that in the previous matchup, Guangdong lost by a whopping 33 points, and with this defeat, Shanghai has won a total of 67 points over two games, leaving Guangdong fans in shock!
In terms of data, Xu Jie from Guangdong scored 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists; Bazley had 18 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists; Morand contributed 5 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 assists; Zhang Wenyi scored 8 points with 6 assists; and Zhang Haojia had 6 points and 5 rebounds. On the Shanghai side, Li Hongquan scored 21 points, Li Tianrong had 17 points, Lofton contributed 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists; Liu Zheng scored 15 points; and Wang Zhelin had 14 points and 11 rebounds.
Guangdong started the game very smoothly, scoring a 9-0 run against Shanghai. However, this turned out to be the only time Guangdong led in the first half. Shanghai quickly responded with an 11-2 run, forcing Guangdong to call a timeout. Throughout the first half, Guangdong was busy defending against Shanghai's three-point shots. Every player on Shanghai could shoot, requiring constant defensive adjustments from Guangdong, who were unable to effectively contain the onslaught. By halftime, Guangdong had already been overwhelmed by Shanghai. Du Feng also benched Jilunwote after an argument, and Jilunwote did not return to the court for the rest of the game.
In the second half, Du Feng even seemed to give up, benching not only Jilunwote but also Xu Jie early in the game, as the point difference continued to widen. Shanghai took advantage of this situation, treating the game as a shooting practice session, completely dismantling Guangdong with their three-point shooting. Ultimately, there was no suspense in the game, and Guangdong's nine-game winning streak came to an end at the hands of Shanghai.
Du Feng is too stubborn and "feudal"! He desires absolute control over the team, and anyone who disagrees with him is shown the door. The top scorer, Jilunwote, had a disagreement with Du Feng during a substitution, merely speaking out of turn, which led to Du Feng immediately staring him down with a death glare and benching him. Xu Jie was also harshly criticized by Du Feng during a timeout for a previous mistake. With the two most important players on the team being treated this way by Du Feng, is he perhaps confusing who holds the real power? It should be noted that Jilunwote is the third-highest scorer in the league and the most reliable player on Guangdong's offense. Yet, he was benched simply for speaking out, with Du Feng disregarding the team's chances of victory, severely harming the team's interests.
Xu Jie actually tried his best in this game. Shanghai's guard line had four players putting pressure on him, taking turns to fiercely challenge him. For most of the time, Xu Jie had to deal with double-teaming from two Shanghai players, and was occasionally interfered with by Lofton or Wilson when they came up the court, significantly limiting his space to play. In the first half, Xu Jie scored 9 points and 3 rebounds with only 1 assist, as he was completely cut off from passing routes by Shanghai, making it impossible for him to organize the offense. When Xu Jie's passes were cut off, his personal one-on-one moves were also highly inefficient due to his height disadvantage, causing Guangdong's offensive system to completely collapse.
After Jilunwote was benched, Guangdong was left with only two foreign players. Unfortunately, both Morand and Bazley are essentially defensive players with no offensive prowess. Bazley did score the highest points for the team, but his offensive efficiency was extremely low. Shanghai basically allowed him to shoot three-pointers because Bazley had no dribbling skills and could only make mistakes when attempting to force a shot. As for Morand, he faced Shanghai in a complete state of surrender, leading the way in tanking as he was dominated on both offense and defense by Wang Zhelin.