The last time the Shanghai Sharks men's basketball team defeated Beijing in the CBA was in 2018. Over the next three years, the Sharks suffered 13 straight losses against Beijing, including the third round of the regular season.
At noon today, such an embarrassing record was finally broken by the big shark itself. In the seventh round of the CBA regular season this season, the Sharks won three consecutive victories over Beijing by 19 points with the strong performance of their core players.
The vengeful Sharks overwhelmed Beijing at the start of the game. In the face of Beijing's notoriously tough defense, the Sharks' players were equally unyielding.
In particular, the main center Wang Zhelin played the toughest game since the beginning of the new season, frequently attacking the opponent's basket on the inside line. He scored 12 points and six rebounds in the first quarter to give the team a 30-25 lead. Guo Haowen, a youngster in this section, also scored 10 points, and his breakthrough made the Beijing team a little confused.
Beijing's defensive pressure is strong and easy to foul, and the Sharks can establish the lead as soon as possible, which is also related to their super high free throw shooting rate today. In the first quarter, the team shot 100 percent of 12 free throws on 12 free throws, and the Sharks conceded just one goal in the entire first half.
As a result, the Beijing team had to become a little intimidated in defense, which gave the Sharks more room to play in their attack.
In the case of a huge advantage in the interior, Wang Zhelin was more left on the field by head coach Li Chunjiang. The "King" played nearly 20 minutes in the first half, the longest time since the start of the season.
Sharks' foreign signing Franklin played his best performance since joining the team. In the second quarter, it was he who shot two consecutive three-pointers, pulling the gap between the two teams into double digits, forcing his opponents to call a timeout.
After the timeout was over, the Sharks and Beijing engaged in a three-point shoot-out. Although Beijing's Liu Xiaoyu hit three consecutive three-pointers, the Sharks also responded one by one, with Guo Haowen, Zong Zan, Franklin and Luo Hanchen shooting three-pointers in succession. Not only did it withstand the opponent's counterattack, but it also further extended the lead of the score.
In addition, the Sharks also controlled the number of mistakes of the whole team very well, compared with the previous mistakes in the first quarter of the year, as high as seven or eight times, after the first two quarters of the game, their mistakes were only 3.
With the whole team performing well, the Sharks entered the second half with a 14-point advantage.
In the first half of the third and fourth quarters, the Sharks were still under the leadership of Franklin and Wang Zhelin, and the inside and outside lines were threatened together, basically did not give the Beijing team any opportunity to counterattack, and the difference between the two teams was once expanded to more than 20 points.
In the end, the Sharks defeated the really strongest teams in the league for the first time in the first seven rounds of the regular season, and the team's current total record is 5 wins and 2 losses.
Franklin recovered well, scoring a single-game-high 33 points (six three-pointers) since joining the Sharks, in addition to eight rebounds, nine assists and one steal. Wang Zhelin's stats are 25 points, 16 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 2 blocks, and he even shot a three-pointer in the game.
The third highest-scoring player on the Sharks was starting player Guo Haowen, who scored 21 points, three rebounds and two assists.
The next round of the Shanghai Sharks men's basketball team is played at 7:35 p.m. on November 3 against Qingdao, who has lost five consecutive games before this round.
Source: Thoughtful