Guangdong slashed down Liaoning 91-61 while the Chinese Army took a come-back 84-65 win over Jiangsu on Friday with the two winners to vie for the title of the men's basketball competitions at the National Games here.

Forward Du Feng led Guangdong with 24 points and 10 rebounds, with Wang Shipeng adding 18 and seven, Yi Jianlian 13 and 12.

All the three are in the national squad while another capped player Zhu Fangyu was benched for illness.

"I don't care who will be our final opponent. We'll go to win the title," said head coach Li Chunjiang, who led Guangdong to reign the CBA league title last season.

Trailing 25-4 in the first quarter and 55-25 in the first half, Liaoning pitched out a complete young squad to close the gap to 61- 45.

"I'm very glad to see my young players came all out and tried their best though we lost the game," said Liaoning's head coach Jiang Xingquan. "If we keep playing like that, we'll be a strong team. If the national team could play like we did today, China will be among the top of the world."

Wang Dayong had 13 points for Liaoning.

The Chinese Army silenced the local audiences by crushing Jiangsu 51-23 in the second half with veteran Liu Yudong scoring 26 points in 27 minutes.

Led by as many as 15 points, the Army cut the gap to nine points with veteran shooter Li Nan's beat-the-buzzer 3-pointer at 42-33 in the first half.

Liu's 3-pointer gave the Army the first lead at 50-48 with 2:07 left in the third quarter, where Jiangsu had only nine points.

Jiangsu did not score until 2:30 into the fourth quarter when it was down by 63-51 as Liu initiated a 11-0 run with seven points by himself.

The host shot 1-out-of-12 from behind the arc and committed 15 turnovers in the second half.

"It's a brilliant victory. We had a bad start. My players had a lot of pressure. But we came back to take the important game. I'm proud of my team," Army's head coach Adijiang said.

"I want to say sorry to the Jiangsu native. It's an embarrassing loss," Jiangsu's guard Meng Da said.

Center Tang Zhengdong led Jiangsu with 21 points and 16 rebounds.

Source: Xinhua