DONGGUAN, China, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Xu Jie scored 25 points as the Guangdong Southern Tigers advanced to the final eight by crushing the Shanghai Sharks 115-92 to win the best-of-three series 2-1 in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) playoffs here on Friday.

Despite scoring the game-high points, Xu also dished out 11 assists. Darius Bazley and Hu Mingxuan each added 20 points for Guangdong, while Kenneth Loften scored 24 for Shanghai.

Shanghai started the game strongly and held a 21-13 lead in the first quarter before Hu Mingxuan inspired an 11-0 run for Guangdong. The home team entered the second quarter with a 37-26 advantage and increased its lead to 70-53 at halftime.

After the break, Guangdong maintained its momentum and widened the gap to 96-71 at the end of the third quarter. The Southern Tigers made no mistakes in the fourth quarter and secured the victory.

Guangdong will take on Shanxi in the quarterfinals. Guangdong lost three of their four encounters during the regular season.

"It was a good win for us. I hope we can do better and better in the future. We will face a tough opponent in the quarterfinals, and we will fight to the end," Guangdong coach Du Feng said. Enditem

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