Experienced Lions steal series from Tigers' mouth

Experience came through in a big way for the Sina Lions on Tuesday night, as the group of thirty-somethings feasted off the young and restless Dacin Tigers in the series clincher by a final score of 81-69.

Veteran point guard Chou Jung-san (周俊三) showed no signs of age as he directed the half-court offense to near perfection; driving to the middle and dishing the ball off to the big men down below for easy layups or pulling up off his dribble for his patented fade-away jumpers.

Chou also found a wide-open Luo Hsin-liang (羅興樑) on several occasions which led to four uncontested three-pointers for Luo.

The dynamic backcourt dual combined to ring up 37 points and 11 assists in an offensive outpouring for the Lions.

The Tigers failed to play the game at the upbeat pace. Despite a 30-point effort by All-Star power forward Tien Lei (田壘), the Tigers let the Lions control the tempo of the game, giving the Lions time to run their high-percentage, half-court offense.

The Tigers' intention to get the Lions frontcourt into early foul trouble worked partially as far as limiting the potency of Lions power forward Liu Yi-shiang (劉義祥), who fouled out of the game with around three minutes left to play. But Lions reserve center Kao Li-min (高立民) rose to the occasion with Liu with 10 points and two rebounds in over 15 minutes of play.

"We all know that the lack of depth has been a concern for us all season long," Lions coach Hu Tsai-lin (胡再麟) said after the game. "Kao stepped it up a notch to take up the slack."

Offensively for the Tigers, second-chance put-backs kept them within striking distance of the Lions in the first half.

The Tigers were often boxed out from the boards by the Lions.

"Hats off to the Lions, they really did a great job in neutralizing our speed advantage," Tigers head coach Liu Jia-fa (劉嘉發) said.

"Once we fell behind, our players became impatient and rushed too many shots."

The victory earned the Lions a date with the top-seeded Yulon Dinos in a best-of-five championship series starting tomorrow night at the Taipei Sports Education College Arena.

All eyes will be on how the Lions frontcourt shuts down the Dinos scoring tandem of Chen Hsin-an (陳信安) and Tseng Wen-ding (曾文鼎), fresh off their big win over the BCC Mars on Monday night in their own series clincher.