WCBA Quarterfinals 1/2008 - Beijing 87, Guangdong 60

If you're going to win a championship, you have to be able to go to your opponent's home site and knock them out. Beijing, the third place finisher in the Women's Chinese Basketball Association, managed to do just that by going to #6 Guangdong and beating them 87-60 on the road.

The series is a best-of-three series. Beijing hopes to move on to the semifinals on Saturday when Guangdong visits Beijing.

The untranslated boxscore is here. The WCBA is having a massive case of fail when it comes to having their boxscores translated by Google.

Both teams played as evenly as one can imagine in the first half of the game, with the score tied up 37-37 at halftime. From the third quarter on, however, it was all Beijing, when Beijing held the home team to a grand total of seven third-quarter points. At the end of three quarters it was 65-44, and the rout was on.

Beijing outshot the home team 56 percent to 39 percent. What killed Guangdong? Well, she who lives by the 3-point shot dies by the 3-point shot. Guangdong went 1-for-12 from behind the 3-point arc.

Guangdong was better at the offensive boards and outrebounded Beijing 30-28. Both teams were about even in turnovers. Beijing would send Guangdong to the free throw line 19 times, so Beijing really needed to shoot better than Guangdong. Compare Beijing's 12-for-22 behind the 3-point arc vs. Guangdong's 1-for-12 and you have the secret of Beijing's success right there.

"Huang Hung DIPY" led all players with 15 points and 5 rebounds for Guangdong. The only other player to finish in double digits for Guangdong was Zhu Lin with 10 points. Ding Park would lead Guangdong in rebounds with nine points and six rebounds.

Five players would score in double digits for Beijing. "Zhang" (which one?) led all Beijing scorers with 20 points and seven assists. "Fan" scored 14 points and three rebounds and Sun Yu also scored 14 poiints and three rebounds. "周宏华" was the lead rebounder with 11 points and 7 rebounds.

What about Jennifer Lacy? It wasn't her best game - seven points in 18 minutes on 2-for-6 shooting with a couple of free throws. She did get five rebounds, though.

Elsewhere in WCBA quarterfinals action, Bayi Telecom beat Liaoyang 89-72, Jiangsu beat Henan 84-82 and Liaoning beat Hayao 94-84. All of those games were first games of a three-game series.