HANGZHOU - The Beijing Ducks overcame a sluggish start to get past the Jilin Northeast Tigers 88-83, while the Shenzhen Aviators smashed the Tianjin Pioneers 96-79 in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) here on Saturday.

The Beijing Ducks' comeback efforts began to arrive in the second quarter, as Leaf and Zhai Xiaochuan penetrated Jilin's defense and Zhang Cairen's 3-pointer leveled the game at 28-28. The rest of the quarter saw lead changes between the two teams, and Nicholas Johnson and Zeng helped Beijing turn the tide, taking a 44-38 halftime advantage

Li An scored the first two points for Jilin, who heralded a ferocious 16-0 run led by Dominique Jones and Jiang Yuxing. With Zeng Fanbo, Ty Leaf and Fan Ziming on the court to consolidate their defense, Beijing closed the gap to nine points, but Jilin held a 25-14 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Beijing's comeback efforts began to arrive in the second quarter, as Leaf and Zhai Xiaochuan penetrated Jilin's defense and Zhang Cairen's 3-pointer leveled the game at 28-28. The rest of the quarter saw lead changes between the two teams, and Nicholas Johnson and Zeng helped Beijing turn the tide, taking a 44-38 halftime advantage.

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Zeng's three-pointers helped Beijing secure a 66-62 advantage over Jilin going into the last 12 minutes.

Jilin lost its offensive initiative as the gap quickly widened to 14 points. Although the Northeast Tigers went all out and unleashed a 9-0 run with two minutes to go, the Ducks quenched their last hope with three-pointers from Zhai and Zeng.

Zeng scored 20 points for Beijing, and Johnson and Fan contributed 16 and 15 points respectively.

On the Jilin side, Jones had a double-double of 23 points and 13 assists.

Although Tianjin started strong with a 10-2 run in the first quarter, the Aviators quickly recovered from it and launched waves of offense afterwards to register a comfortable win.

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In other games, the Shanxi Loongs beat the Jiangsu Dragons 104-89, and the Shanghai Sharks defeated the Beijing Royal Fighters 105-98.