BEIJING (2016 Rio Olympics) - Teams often surpass the 100-point plateau in China's CBA, a league known for its free-flowing offenses.

The defense played in the CBA?

The late Red Auerbach, whose Boston Celtics teams were famous for putting the clamps on the opposition, might have rolled his eyes had he witnessed Shandong Flaming Bulls' 144-107 demolition of Foshan Long Lions last week.

Foshan have conceded an average of 120.6 points per game this season.

There are players in the league who have shown an ability to turn it up a notch on defense, though.

The Xinjiang Flying Tigers and Liaoning Hunters each have a defensive minded warrior that played for China this summer.

The Flying Tigers have Zhou Qi, who was second in blocked shots at the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship with an average of 2.0 per contest.

He has been a swat machine in the CBA so far this season with the Flying Tigers.

Zhou's CBA best average of 3.8 blocks per game helped Xinjiang win their first 11 games of the 2015-16 campaign.

Liaoning, the side that lost to Beijing Ducks in last season's CBA Finals, have China's combative point guard Guo Ailun.

Guo is a player that has plenty of offense to offer.

He showed plenty of panache in Changsha-Hunan at the FIBA Asia Championship.

But the 22-year-old also played a lot of defense.

Guo had a team-high 12 steals for China in the tournament held in Changsha-Hunan.

Both he and Zhou made the All-Star Five after helping China go undefeated and qualify for next year's Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Guo Ailun (CHN) at FIBA Asia Championship

When it comes to Zhou, his Xinjiang coach Li Qiuping says he has a lot of room for improvement but admits that on defense, he is already making a major impact.

"Zhou is not as polished offensively as a lot of foreign players, but he does make contributions," Li said.

"Defensively, his presence affects the opposition's shooting percentage and plays an important role at that end of the floor." 

As for Guo, on Tuesday he had a couple of steals to go with his 15 points as Liaoning claimed their most important win of the season, a 93-87 triumph at Beijing.

The defending champions jumped out to an early lead and appeared to have the upper hand in the second half but Guo and Liaoning dug in on defense and seized control of the contest.

"When the attack didn't go well, things didn't feel good and the play wasn't smooth so it was necessary to go forward with a tenacious defense and that changed the momentum of the game," Guo said.

Guo and Liaoning improved to 8-3 on the season while Beijing fell to 7-4.

Xinjiang had their perfect start to the season end when they fell in their 12th game to Fujian Quanzhou Bank, 128-119.

Zhou had two blocks to go with his 23 points in that loss.

FIBA