Experience counts as Lions win

Winning has become a formality for the Sina Lions as the most experienced team in the league set a new winning-streak record by beating the Yulon Dinos 68 to 60 in Saturday afternoon's showdown between the league's top two squads.

The Lions exceeded the previous mark of 11 by beating the previous record holders.

Led by the backcourt tandem of Chou Jung-san (周俊三) and Luo Hsin-liang (羅興樑), which combined for 33 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, the Lions showed the Dinos why experience still matters in this game as they held the league leaders to a season-low 60 points with a well-planned defensive scheme.

Even though the 68 points put up by the Lions were well short of their season average of 75, it was enough for victory as the Lions reduced the Dinos' league lead to just half a game, with one month left to play before the postseason begins.

"They really took us to school tonight with their penetration and steady flow on offense, not to mention Chou's amazing energy for the entire game," Dinos assistant coach Lin Cheng-ming (林正明) said after the game.

Elephants 72, Tigers 71

Fans got more than they bargained for on Saturday, because Game 2 between the Jeoutai Elephants and the Dacin Tigers kept them on their feet for nearly the whole game.

A classic seesaw battle was not decided until Elephant forward Ou-yang Jin-hehn's (歐陽進恆) game-winner with 5.6 seconds left in the game.

Instead of faltering in the game's closing seconds as they have done in the past, the Elephants were able to grab the a key defensive rebound, move the ball up the court quickly without turning it over and make the crucial shot when it counted.

Poor time management might have cost the Tigers the game as they ran down the shot clock without setting up a high-percentage shot or getting the Elephants to commit a foul.

The miscue gave the Elephants the ball with 14 seconds on the game clock.

"We should've shot sooner so that if we missed, we would have had enough time for one more possession," Tigers skipper Liu Jia-fa (劉嘉發) said after the game.

The win upped the Elephants' winning streak to three and pulled them to within half a game of the Tigers in the league.

Mars 74, Bank of Taiwan 63

Bank of Taiwan might have lost the game against the BCC Mars on Sunday, but it did score a moral victory against the league's most potent offense by playing shoulder to shoulder with the Mars for the entire second half (26-28).

With half of its starting lineup sidelined by injuries, Bank of Taiwan turned in a rare respectable performance, despite running its losing skid to 11 games.

The victory evened the Mars' record to 8-8, but further exposed their problem of playing down to their opponents' level.

"Even though we won, I would give this team a D-minus for not putting the game away early," Mars head coach Chung Chih-mong (鍾枝萌) said after the game.

Taiwan Beer 77, Dinos 92

With Taiwan Beer superstar Lin "the Monster" Chih-jeh (林志傑) playing in the BenQ College Championship during the week, the Beer men simply ran out of fizz in the second half against the Dinos on Sunday night.

The Dinos took an eight-point lead after the first period on small forward Chou Shih-yuen's (周士淵) 14 first-period points, only to see it halved before the end of the half.

Dino point guard Chen Chih-chung (陳志忠) turned in his best performance of the season with 26 points to lead all scorers, after a dismal showing in the loss against the Lions on Saturday.