Published: January 19, 2018

Despite playing his fewest minutes of the season, Jimmer Fredette had a monster game as the Shanghai Sharks crushed the Bayi Rockets 117-93 on Friday.

Fredette shot lights out as he totaled a game-best 42 points on 14-for-22 shooting from the floor, including 8-for-15 from 3-point land and a perfect 6-for-6 from the foul line. He added five rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals in 30 minutes of work.

After 16 first-half points, Fredette really got things rolling in the third quarter as the Sharks blew the game wide open. He totaled 18 points in the quarter, including a buzzer-beating three from beyond half court as time expired.

He kept thing going early in the fourth as he added a tip-in followed by back-to-back three’s before taking a seat with Shanghai up 111-85.

Lo Wei also had a fantastic performance for the Sharks as he finished with 30 points on 11-for-14 shooting from the field, including 8-for-10 from distance.

Nick Minnerath added 15 points and eight rebounds while Zhang Zhaoxu chipped in with nine points, five rebounds and two blocks in 18 minutes.

A trio of Rockets carried the scoring load in the loss as Fu Hao, De Lehei and Hang Liu combined for 66 points. Hao led the way with 22 points, 11 rebounds and five assists while Lehei added 22 points on 9-for-13 shooting from the floor, including 4-for-6 from 3-point land in 25 minutes of work.

With the win, the Sharks evened up their record at 14-14 placing them in a three-way tie for the 11th spot in the standings with the Beikong Fly Dragons and the Jiangsu Tongxi Monkey Kings.

As for Fredette, he is now second in the league in scoring averaging 37.5 points a night on 45 percent shooting from inside the arc, 43 percent from beyond the arc and 96 percent from the foul line. He is also putting up 6.9 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.9 steals in 40.4 minutes through 28 games.

Up next for Fredette and the Sharks in their quest to make the playoffs for the second straight season is a matchup with the Fujian Sturgeons on Sunday.

The Sturgeons are 12-16 on the season after a Thursday night loss to the Beijing Ducks. They are led by the American combo of Russ Smith and Mike Harris.

Smith leads the way with 33.7 points, 7.2 assists, 6.8 rebounds and 1.9 steals in 26 games while Harris is managing 20.6 points, 12.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists.

Photo credit: By Bagumba (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons