The Shanghai Sharks finally put an end to their awkward straight loss record since season restart as they defeated the Guangzhou Loong Lions 85-75 in a suffocating defensive contest on Friday. Chinese legendary point guard Liu Wei began his coaching career with a victory.

Guangzhou became a dud bomb in the offense as the whole team shot at 37.84 percent, and none of their starts reached double-digit points. The team's American guard Marcus Hunter who was just named CBA Weekly MVP, went 2-13 to get only seven points, but he grabbed 16 rebounds.

Having failed to reach 20 points in any of the first three quarters, Guangzhou managed to launch counter-strike in Q4, relying on their 15 steals and three bench assassins, Liu Fengbo, Tian Yuheng, and Sun Mingyang who scored 18, 11 and 10 points respectively.

On Shanghai's side, though their 41.79-percent FG rate was not pretty either, five of their players, three from starting squad and two from the bench, scored over 20 points. Dong Hanlin put down 13 points, 11 rebounds off the bench.

Though Manos Manouselis attended the game with Shanghai, Liu Wei was the one giving players instructions during timeouts and game breaks. Winning the first game cheered Shanghai's players up and marked a good start for Liu Wei's new career.

Fujian Sturgeons get vengeance on Jilin Northeast Tigers

The Fujian Sturgeons stood up to the counter-strike of the Jilin Northeast Tigers in the second half and pocketed the win 120-111, avenging their defeat three days ago.

Jilin again were on fire from the 3-point line as they sank 17 shots from downtown. Sean Hill, Zhong Cheng and Jiang Weize buried six, four and five 3-pointers respectively, almost helping their team come back from a 19-point trail.

On Fujian's side, Wang Zhelin was still dominant under the rim to go 12-17 to score 30 points, 10 rebounds. The team's American guard Ty Lawson shot down 26 points and more importantly, did a remarkable job of orchestrating Fujian's offense via his 19 assists. Thanks to his leadership, Fujian kept an FG rate of 54.76 percent and scored 30+points in both the first and the last quarter.

All-Chinese Zhejiang Lions beat Beijing Ducks' foreign aid pair

The Zhejiang Lions continued their all-win journey since the season restart as they beat the Beijing Ducks 100-87. Zhejiang's Liu Zheng put down game-high 25 points. Hu Jinqiu got 24 points, 16 rebounds and Sun Minghui claimed 11 points, five rebounds, 12 assists. Zhejiang again owed this victory to their defense which was aggressive enough to force 19 turnovers from the Ducks.

Compared with their opponents, which had a foreign aid pair of Jeremy Lin and Ekpe Udoh, they were the chasing side from the beginning. Lin got 9+3+5 and Udoh scored 9+8+2. If it weren't for Fang Shuo's 21 points, the Ducks were unlikely to hold out to the last five minutes.

The Ducks' record in the past four games for 2-2. Making the playoffs should not be a problem for them but challenging Guangdong would sound as ridiculous as their 36.36-percent free throw rate.

Bench unit holds Shanxi Loons back in their loss to Beijing Royal Fighters

The Beijing Roya Fighters claimed a solid win over the Shanxi Loongs 106-98. The Royal Fighters' American guard Kyle Fogg shot down team-high 24 points and five assists. Sun Yue buried four shots from downtown to get 18 points, seven rebounds, three assists and four blocks. One interesting about the team was that though six of their players scored double-digit points, none of them reached 10 in attempts.

Shanxi's starting five did a wonderful job as all of them dropped 10+points and together, they scored 86 points. However, that was also the best proof for how disappointing their bench squad was. Having gone 4-25 together, Shanxi's six substitute players had 12 points, ruining all the efforts of their starting teammates.

Bayi Rockets suffer 14th straight loss

Bayi Rockets were ruled out for the playoffs after losing to Qingdao Eagles on Wednesday but misfortune had no intention to let the team go. On Friday in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Bayi again lost to Zhejiang Golden Bulls 96-79, suffering their 14th loss in a row and continued to remain at the bottom with a 2-32 record.

Like most of their losses this season, Bayi trailed by 13 points in the first quarter (29-16). Though they once managed to narrow it down to three in Q2, Zhejiang's Wu Qian destroyed Bayi's hope with six 3-pointers in the third quarter alone. He dropped 20 points, five rebounds and nine assists in total while his teammates, Lu Wenbo, Zhu Xuhang, got 22 and 21 points respectively.

This was already the ninth straight season for Bayi to miss the playoffs. The team has too much that needs to change and they better start soon.

Do Guangdong Southern Tigers remind you of Golden State Warriors?

Guangdong Southern Tigers continued to win even as Yi Jianlian, their best player, sat on the bench. They smashed Tianjin Pioneers 132-79. Ren Junfei was the brightest star on the court for Guangdong as he put down 35 points, 11 rebounds, three blocks and career-high nine steals.

One thing that deserved more attention about this game was the genuine attitude of Guangdong's head coach Du Feng. His team led by 54 points (123-69) when there were less than three minutes left. Then Tianjin stole the ball to get two points via a fast break dunk. Du Feng immediately called a timeout and warned his players to be more careful with the ball. Judging by his gesture and expression, you could tell Du was more than unhappy.

Guangdong not only won all of their four games since season restart, they did it by 39 points per game and Yi Jianlian sat on in two of them. The last team that showed such dominance in a basketball league were NBA's Golden State Warriors.