WCBA 8/2008 - Liaoning 74, Beijing 72

Beijing (3-5) would have to go on the road against Liaoning (6-2), one of the great WCBA teams and hope for a win to keep them from falling too far behind in the race for the Chinese League championship. Tied at 72-72, it would be Liaoning that hit the final bucket to clinch their sixth win of the year, 74-72. The win kept Liaoning in second place, and Beijing fell to ninth place. With only the top eight teams going to the postseaon, Beijing has every reason to be concerned.

The boxscore is here.

There aren't any writeups in the Chinese media as far as I know. I'm at work, and I can't spend too much time surfing the net. Oddly enough, the WCBA main website updates the score moment by moment - but not the boxscore. I could see that Liaoning and Beijing were tied 72-72, and then the game ended with Liaoning getting the victory - I just don't know who took the final winning shot for Liaoning. If I can find out, I'll tell you.

Beijing had control at halftime, winning the first two quarters and holding a 46-40 advantage over the home team. However, they began to let Liaoning back into the game. Liaoning crawled back to withing four after three quarters, behing 57-53. With that, Liaoning was close enough to make a fourth quarter run that gave them the game on a winning last-moment bucket by some unknown player.

Liaoning won the battle of shooting, 48 percent to 42 percent, but Beijing took more shots overall and hit more three pointers. Liaoning would win the overall rebounding battle, but Beijing won the more important part of the war, the offensive rebounding, scoring four more offensive boards.

However, Liaoning wno this game at the free throw line. They were 17-18 from the giveaway line, compared to a dismal 7-for-12 for Beijing. Ji Xiao hit almost as many free throws by herself (six) as did the entire Beijing team put together (seven).

Only six players scored for Liaoning on a team that only dressed nine players, but six players was all Liaoning needed. Ji Xiao had 21 points and seven reboundsd, along with Wang Ling with 20 points and seven rebounds. Tangela Smith had a double-double for Liaoning, scoring 11 points and 10 rebounds. She and By Ma Yu were the only players on Liaoning that played all forty minutes. Smith plays for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA.

As for Beijing, Jennifer Lacy scored 20 points and had seven rebounds and four steals. Zhang Fan added 14 points, three rebounds and 4 assists, and Sun Yu added 12 points for Beijing's effort.

My cut and paste function seems to have developed a glitch, so I can't do a search on Google China using Chinese characters. Bummer. Pictures will come if someone happens to think of posting them on a blog after attending a game.

P. S.: Here is an update on the final moments of the game. It's vague, but the translation is vague.

The score is 72-70 Beijing going into the final seconds.
Jia Guang of Liaoning steals the ball with 12 seconds left to tie the game.
Wang Ling of Liaoning is fouled with six seconds left.
Wang Ling hits the two free throws that make it 74-72 for Liaoning.

The media account from the WCBA website also makes it clear that Jennifer Lacy overshadowed Tangela Smith. I think.