Dongguan Marco Polo swept Shandong Flaming Bulls to be the first team entering the semifinals of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) league on Sunday.

Dongguan defeated the regular-season No.3 team by 111-97 at home to win the best-of-five series 3-0.

Regular-season winner Guangdong Hongyuan survived a 112-108 overtime victory over Zhejiang Guangsha to get another last-four berth.

Guangdong will meet Dongguan in the semifinals.

Point guard Chen Jianghua ended Guangsha's last hope with a lay-up in the last minute in overtime to give Guangdong a 110-108 lead.

Guangsha trailed seven points after tying the regular time by 101-101.

Rodney White led Guangsha by 34 points and nine rebounds, while Wang Shipeng led Guangdong by 28 points.

Li Nan buried a go-ahead lay-up with 13.8 seconds to go and Wang Zhizhi made a crucial block on Olumide Oyedeji's last attempt to give Bayi Fubang a 95-94 victory over Liaoning Hunters.

This was the third time the series match was decided by one point, the first two were won by Liaoning, with Game 4 and a possible Game 5 to be played on Liaoning's home court.

Leading by as many as 25 points, Bayi let the visitors climb up in the fourth quarter on 87-87 with 5:06 minutes left and trailed 94-93 after Liu Xiangtao chipped in a 3-pointer with 27 seconds to go.

No team had ever won the best-of-five series after being down by 2-0 and Bayi entered the finals 12 times in its 13 playoffs in the league history.

Jiangsu Dragons led another series by 2-1 after beating Fujian SBS 110-102.

(Xinhua News Agency January 21, 2008)