The Liaoning Flying Leopards walked over the Xinjiang Flying Tigers 116-88 in Game 1 of the 2020 CBA playoff semifinals on Wednesday night, a result that shocked many. O.J. Mayo and Han Dejun shared court-high 20 points while Han got 13 rebounds and Mayo five steals.

Neither side was able to deploy their best squad because of injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic. Liaoning's advantage lied with their back-court pair Guo Ailun, Zhao Jiwei and former NBA guard Mayo. In contrast, Xinjiang's front court group, Zhou Qi, Fan Ziming seemed too huge for Liaoning to match.

Considering the different advantages the two sides had, the best way to win should be to simplify the game. For Xinjiang that meant to turn every possession into slow, half-court offense/defense and force Liaoning to challenge the giants face-to-face. As for Liaoning, the key to victory lied to how to speed up the game and force Xinjiang to run chasing the ball.

Liaoning tried to force the pace from the beginning. The pressed the ball in the perimeter and trapped Xinjiang's big men in the paint. Of course that led to the cost of leaving lots of open 3-pointers, but Xinjiang failed to make them pay with their disappointing 25.93- percent of 3-point rate (7-27).

In contrast, Xinjiang's advantage seemed fake as none of their big men could do much in front of Liaoning's center Han Dejun. Moreover, their ball-passing was sloppy, which led to 23 turnovers by themselves and 17 steals by Liaoning. Xinjiang's center Zhou Qi was 2-4 from downtown, which was not bad, but he was in total 3-10 to get only 13 points an 10 rebounds.

As Xinjiang could score effectively either under the rim or from outside, they decided to compete for speed with Liaoning on the court. It did not take long to prove it was a terrible decision. Thanks to the remarkable penetration and finishing ability by Guo Ailun and Mayo, Liaoning continued to add points via easy basket in fast break. By contrast, Xinjiang's early offense mostly ended misses, both in passing and shooting.

The other bad news accompanied the painful loss for Xinjiang was that their forward Tang Caiyu was injured in a collision with Guo Ailun before he was carried out on a stretcher. There's no report about his condition at the moment.

Game 2 of the series will take place on Friday.