Mars raises game to down Beer

Week 2 of the 2003 Super Basketball League (SBL) began on Saturday night with the BBC Mars' easy victory over the Taiwan Beer by a final score of 88-70 at the Taipei Sports Education College arena.

It was the Mars' first win of the season, after a tough five-point loss to the Yulon Dinos in their season opener the previous week. For the Taiwan Beer, the loss marked its first defeat of the season, following its 68-60 season opening win over the Jeou Tai Elephants.

Propelled by two first-half scoring spurts of 13-0 and 11-4, the Mars built a commanding 20-point lead before half-time and never looked back.

Mars shooting guard Chen Hui (陳暉) led all scorers with 17 points in addition to dishing out a game-high seven assists. Chen also drained three from behind the arch.

Yulon Dinos 83, Jioutai Elephants 78

The Dinos picked up where they left off in the opening week of the season by claiming their third straight victory with an 83-78 win over the Jioutai Elephants.

The Elephants took a slim 21-20 lead after the first period, before doubling it to 42-40 prior to intermission.

However, the Dinos then went on a 11-0 and 6-0 run during the third period to turn the tide against the Elephants, which fell behind by 10. Despite Elephant shooter Yang Yu-ming's (楊玉明) 8-for-17 (22 points) effort, that got his team as close as five points in the final period, the Dinos' dominance inside the paint behind center Tseng Wen-ding's (曾文鼎) eight blocks and 10 boards proved to be too much as they held on for the win.

Sina 67, Dacin 77

The battle between the winless Sina Lions and the Dacin Tigers ended in favor of the Tigers in Sunday's matinee contest. The Tigers' outstanding speed proved to be the difference as the aging Lions simply ran out of gas in the closing minutes.

The star of the game was the Tigers' big man Tien Lei (田壘), who finished with a game-high 27 points and 13 rebounds. The budding star also made four blocks against the Lions' front three to go along with two steals to easily take the game-MVP honor.

"Beside being quick and explosive, he [Tien] can also hit the long threes against you," Lion center Huang Chuen-hsiung (黃春雄) was quoted by the local press as saying after the game.

Bank of Taiwan 81, Taiwan Beer 83

Erasing a deficit as large as 15 points in the fourth period, Taiwan Beer came out on top in its 83-81 victory over the previous unbeaten Bank of Taiwan.

Behind the season-high 39-point performance by standout forward Lin Chih-jeh (林志傑), who scored all but two of his team's final 21 points, Taiwan Beer edged out archrival Bank of Taiwan to regain some much-needed confidence after Saturday night's ugly 18-point loss to round out the weekend at 1-1.

Despite having three of its starters scoring in double-figures, Bank of Taiwan was unable to contain Lin down the stretch, as Lin outhustled every defender assigned to guard him.

While the taste of victory is sweet for the young and speedy squad, Taiwan Beer's tendency to become a one-man team (only one other player managed to score more than 10 points) will be the focus of the team's workouts this week before they take on the Lions this weekend.