Shangdong Flaming Bulls smiled again as they stormed past Beijing Ducks 99-83 while Hubei Mei'erya tastes its first win in 18 games by edging Nanjing Army 85-84in the 18th round of the Chinese Basketball League on Wednesday.

Shangdong, who lost to Beijing Ducks in a road game earlier on December, assured its victory by an outstanding performance in thesecond quarter with 30-14 though they suffered a shaky start 18-21 in the opening quarter.

19-year-old star Jiao Jian led the Beijing Ducks with game high 30 points and Ducks center Bateer added 23. But the Ducks trailed most of the game due to lack of effective team attacks after the sounding first quarter.

"It is a tough game. We beat the Ducks because we are fully prepared, especially blocked out their center Bateer," said Ye Peng, head coach of Shangdong.

The 2.02-meter tall power forward Gong Xiaobin drilled in 27 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for Shangdong.

Hubei won a game between the last two teams on the bottom of the league rankings, and claimed their first victory of this season.

Mei'erya tied the Nanjing Army 47-47 at the interval and went on to power their rivals with a fierce fourth quarter run of 21-9.

"Both teams are struggling in the bottom of the league, so we had to win the game and fortunately we are lucky to get it." said Yuan Zhanhong, the head coach of the Hubei side.

In Wednesday's other matches, home teams seemed to tune a victory sound except the Shanghai Sharks, who lost to the four-time defending champion Bayi Rockets 98-119.

The Rocket now topped the rankings with 17 win and one defeat, ahead of Guangdong Hongyuan with 13 wins while Hubei and Nanjing shared the last place with merely one victory.

Vanguard Aoshen beat Zhejiang Cyclone 96-86, Hongyuan cracked Jilin Tigers 93-88 and Liaoning Hunters cruised Jiangsu Dragons 113-92. (Xinhua)