Liaoning team players in the game. Image source: Osports All Sports Images
Beijing, May 5 (Zhongxin.com) -- In the just-concluded fourth game of the 15-2022 China Men's Basketball Professional League (CBA) Finals, Liaoning defeated Zhejiang 23:106, sweeping their opponents 70:4 on aggregate and defending the CBA championship.
In the 28-year history of the CBA, there have been a total of 9 previous Finals sweeps. For the second consecutive season, Liaoning scored 4-0 in the finals, completing the 10th sweep in CBA history.
Zhao Jiwei in the game. Image source: Osports All Sports Images
Since the 2005-06 best-of-7 system, five CBA finals have ended 4-5, including this season's series with Liaoning's victory last season.
Facing Zhejiang again, another 4:0, Liaoning completed eight consecutive cross-season finals wins, and once again won the championship by sweeping, but the taste was different.
Last season, Liaoning won the championship with a record of 9 playoff wins, becoming the third team in CBA history to win the playoffs and winning the second CBA championship in team history.
In the two seasons before that, Liaoning reached the finals, but lost to Guangdong in a row.
The superb journey to the playoffs and the joy of regaining the championship after four years have made Liaoning's second championship in team history carry countless emotions.
The data picture shows the 2021 finals, Guangdong players (white) celebrate victory. Image source: Visual China
In competitive sports, it's often harder than winning again.
As the defending champions, Liaoning have had an inconsistent performance in the regular season this season. Due to injuries and other reasons, Guo Allen only played in 42 of the 27 regular season games, and Zhang Zhenlin also missed 13 games. The absence of the main players has affected the team's competitiveness, and they have lost to Suzhou Kendia and Guangzhou Dragons and Lions, and finally ranked third in the regular season.
This means that the defending champions Liaoning are in the same half as Guangdong, the league's second-place team in the playoffs, and their Finals opponents in the past are likely to meet early in the playoff semifinals. Although Guangdong failed to qualify as expected, leading to a theoretical "encounter" that fell through, the challenges experienced by Liaoning continued unabated – in the playoff semifinals, they met Zhejiang East Sunshine, a repeat of last year's finals.
In a best-of-five match match against Zhejiang East Sunshine, Liaoning trailed 1:2 at one point. Allen Guo suffered a leg strain in the second game of the semifinals and missed the rest of the series.
Data map: Liaoning team once trailed 1:2 in the semifinals Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Haiyang
One of the difficulties in defending the title is how to continue to be a winner and continue to be eager to play and win. However, for the Liaoning team, this does not seem to be a problem.
After Allen Guo "fell", his backcourt partner Zhao Jiwei burst out with strong energy, combing the team and scoring contributions. More importantly, Zhang Zhenlin, Li Xiaoxu, Han Dejun and foreign aides Ferg and Moreland all stood up one after another in the follow-up games, so that the team's coach Yang Ming's "three military lives, try to make up for the absence of the best players in the team" became the winning factor for the Liaoning team to win two consecutive games and advance to the finals.
Alan Guo also thanked the team more than once on his personal social media. "Thank you all for your efforts and giving me a chance to play this season." In the fourth game of the semifinals, after Liaoning equalized the overall scoreline, Guo Allen, who was absent due to injury, wrote.
However, the impact of the injury allowed Guo Allen to not get 3 minutes of playing time until the second half of the third game of the finals to complete his comeback.
After that game, Yang Ming revealed that his injury was actually very serious. 'But one is his personal quest and the other is the expectation of returning to the home fans, and we want to try to meet all the ideas.
Allen Guo social media screenshot
This "desire to fight" is not only reflected in Allen Guo, who is unable to play due to injury, but also in the entire team in Liaoning. They carried over the team play of the second half of the semi-finals to the final showdown.
Zhang Zhenlin contributed a triple-double in the first game of the Finals, becoming the first local player in CBA history to score a triple-double in the Finals; Li Xiaoxu played more than 40 minutes in his second game, scoring 12 points and 15 rebounds, and at the age of 32, he suffered a major Achilles tendon injury, and regained the style of "domestic Warcraft" when the team needed it; Han Dejun, who just celebrated his 36th birthday, contributed a double-double more than once in this series.
Coupled with Zhao Jiwei, who plays the role of "fixing the sea god needle", and the conscientious foreign aid Moreland and Ferg, Liaoning team overwhelmed the Zhejiang team in the finals because of the team's play, in the experience accumulated over the years in the finals, and in the strong desire.
Data map: Han Dejun defending in the game Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Haiyang
If the first championship in team history in 2018 was a wish after years of searching, and the 2022 finals victory was a four-year accumulation of forbearance, then today's title defense can be said to be a reward for Liaoning's continuous pursuit of victory.
Liaoning team, worth it. (End)