Guangsha come back to defeat Beijing in Boban Marjanovic's debut

The Guangsha Lions overcame a 17-point deficit to defeat the Beijing Ducks 83-79 in a Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) regular season game in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, on Wednesday, securing their fifth straight win.

Guangsha's newly-signed Serbian giant Boban Marjanovic made his first appearance for the home team against Beijing. His 2.22-meter height and 2.39-meter wingspan enabled him to dunk over Zhou Qi with minimal effort, but Marjanovic was too slow to follow his teammates in transition on many occasions. He played seven minutes off the bench and made two of his three field goals (FGs) to get four points, two rebounds and one steal.

Both sides struggled to make shots in the first quarter and combined to get no more than 25 points after nine minutes. Both Zhou and Zhang Cairen knocked down triples for Beijing to lead 22-17 after this quarter.

The visitors maintained their defensive intensity in the second quarter, doing a great job of limiting the opponents' aces. Guangsha's star point guard Sun Minghui got only six points in the first half. Former CBA Most Valuable Player Hu Jinqiu had no more than three points. Beijing extended their lead to six points at 42-36 before the halftime break.

Guangsha's struggle continued as the third quarter began. After Zhai Xiaochuan made a jumper assisted by Fan Ziming with two minutes to go, Beijing increased their advantage to 64-47. That's when the hosts finally began to bounce back and drove a 7-0 run so the final quarter didn't look too desperate for them.

Guangsha's offense continued to improve in the fourth quarter as they outscored the opponents 13-2 in the first four minutes and gained the lead 67-66. By contrast, Beijing throwing bricks from downtown. The score was tied 77-77 with one minute to go. Zhu Junlong and Barry Brown earned six free throws for Guangsha and made all of them for their side to sit on a six-point lead at 83-77. Beijing only saw one face-saving jumper made by Lei Meng during the same period of time.