The Guangdong Southern Tigers won the 2019-20 CBA championship after defeating the Liaoning Flying Leopards 123-115 in Game 3 of the Finals on Saturday night.

Sonny Weems shot down court-high 39 points for Guangdong and was named the Finals MVP. His teammates Zhou Peng and Yi Jianlian had 23 and 14 points, respectively. Liaoning's O.J. Mayo, Guo Ailun, and Han Dejun together dropped 81 points.

At the awards ceremony, Guangdong's center Su Wei carried Yi Jianlian, who suffered a torn right Achilles in the game, on his back to join his teammates for this valuable moment. He may not be the best-performing player of the series, but Yi has always been the team's spine.

Liaoning continued their aggressiveness from Game 2. Liu Zhixuan and Guo Ailun both finished three-point plays while O.J. Mayo sank a triple. Soon Liaoning led by seven points. Guangdong continued to create open corner threes, but few were made. Fortunately for them, Sonny Weems was on fire and scored 12 points in Q1. Liaoning led 29-26 in this quarter.

Guo pursued his charge against the rim in the second quarter. His penetration plus the dish-out of Wang Huadong once gave Liaoning fans enough reasons to hail. However, at the same time, Guangdong, like a group of experienced veterans, observed their opponents patiently, trying to find their weakness. And soon they found it – Guo only scored in the paint.

Since then, Guangdong began to alter their defense on Guo. Every time Guo called a screen, he found that his defenders continued to retreat, waiting for him in front of the rim. As a result, Guo found it increasingly difficult to score around the rim. Meanwhile, Liaoning's players started to lose focus on defense, allowing Guangdong, especially Xu Jie, to pierce into their defense with smart passing.

Guangdong gained the lead 54-47 after the second quarter.

Guo began to sink 3-pointers in the third quarter. With two triples and one layup, he scored eight straight points for Liaoning, but his efforts could not bring the pace back to Liaoning. The team could still score, but each possession of them was so difficult that it looked like they were trying to beat the buzzer. By contrast, Guangdong began to handle the game in their own way. They kept scoring easy basket via extra passing during the half-court offense; when there was a chance, Guangdong were also able to launch fast break like raging waves.

Though the score difference kept fluctuating around seven, Guangdong's advantage was growing bigger and bigger, until that misfortunate moment caught Yi Jianlian.

Yi earned two free throws after a turnover charge against the rim. He missed the second, and right at that moment, he fell onto the ground with his hand on the right ankle. There was no body contact between him and anybody. Yi's teammates came to carry him, but he insisted on leaving the court with his feet on the ground.

From this moment, the theme of Game 3 changed from defending the championship to "fighting for Yi Jianlian." Having led 95-86 in the Q3, Guangdong further enhanced their defense in the fourth quarter by ball pressuring Liaoning's perimeter players. Meanwhile, Liaoning's players began to feel run down. Weems kept attacking Liaoning's paint, helping his team extend the lead point by point.

Compared with the first three quarters in which the two teams scored 181 points together, Guangdong and Liaoning were 9-5 after almost six minutes in Q4. In the last six minutes, Liaoning tried to deter the opponents with the full-court press, but their players were too tired to even cover the two corners. After Zhou Peng and Mayo exchanged threes, Han Dejun finished a tough three-point play for Liaoning to narrow the score difference down to five points.

Liaoning made a bad decision in the last two minutes by sticking to full-court press – their players had to stamina for that. As a result, they gave Guangdong four easy points. After that, Han scored the last two points for Liaoning, whose efforts were ruined by the three free throws made by Xu Jie and Zhao Rui.

Guangdong received their 10th CBA championship in franchise history. They defended the honor of the most dominant team of the league.

(Cover image: The Guangdong Southern Tigers lift the 2020 CBA championship trophy after defeating the Liaoning Flying Leopards 123-115 in Game 3 of the Finals in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, August 15, 2020. /VCG)