Hey basketball fans! Guess what? The Shanghai Sharks have just won the first-ever CBA Club Cup! 🏆
The Sharks faced off against the Xinjiang Flying Tigers in a thrilling game in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. 🦈 vs. 🐯
This new tournament was started during the breaks of the 2024-2025 CBA season. Even though it doesn’t affect the regular season rankings, the games were super intense!
Both teams had been playing really well. The Sharks hadn’t lost a game, and the Flying Tigers were also on fire! 🔥
In the first quarter, both teams played tough defense. That means they tried really hard to stop each other from scoring. The Sharks only made one basket from open play! But thanks to Kenneth Lofton making all his free throws, the score was close. The Sharks were down 13-16 after the first quarter.
(By the way, free throws are shots you get to take without anyone trying to stop you, usually after the other team makes a foul.)
In the second quarter, things heated up! Both teams started scoring more points. D.J. Wilson and Wang Zhelin helped the Sharks go on a 13-3 scoring run. That means they scored 13 points while the other team only scored 3! But the Flying Tigers fought back and took the lead again. At halftime, the Sharks were just a little behind, 38-42.
In the second half, Eric Bledsoe, a former NBA player, really took off! He scored 15 points in the third quarter, and then 16 more in the fourth quarter! That’s a lot of points! 🏀✨
Even though the Flying Tigers tried hard to catch up, Bledsoe and Lofton kept making their free throws, keeping the Sharks ahead.
When the final buzzer sounded, the Sharks won by nine points and became the champions! 🎉
Bledsoe scored a total of 31 points and was named the MVP, or Most Valuable Player, of the game. He said, “Both teams played incredibly hard today, keeping the suspense alive until the very end. The coach placed a lot of trust in me during critical moments, and I seized the opportunity to achieve this victory alongside my teammates.”
Congratulations to the Shanghai Sharks on their big win! 🦈🏀
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
