Hsu "Birdie" Chih-chao's baseline jumper with time expiring broke a 69-all tie in Sunday's showdown between the Dacin Tigers and the Yulon Dinos to give the big cats a thrilling 71-69 win over the defending champs.
For the second time in eight days, the veteran forward delivered the knockout punch for his team with the game on the line, recalling his double-pump reverse layup in the game's closing moments that gave the Tigers a critical four-point lead to seal the 86-85 victory over the Sina Lions on Jan. 23.
The Tigers have won three of their past four contests by a total margin of five points, making them the league's best finisher in close games thus far.
Sunday's narrow victory propelled the Tigers past Taiwan Beer for the sole possession of the third-place spot in the latest standings with a 7-5 record, a game and a half behind the second-placed Dinos (8-3) and three games behind the league-leading Videoland Hunters (10-2).
Tigers 106, Bank of Taiwan 64
After beating the beermen by a deuce in Friday's 91-89 nail-biter, the mentally drained and physically exhausted Tigers seemed anything but ready to take on the high-flying Dinos -- victors of a 106-64 blowout over the Bank of Taiwan on Saturday that stretched their winning streak to seven games.
But the Tigers managed to take advantage of the absence of the Dinos' all-star center Tseng Wen-ding, who had sat out the game to nurse an ankle injury, by pounding the middle of the paint for several key baskets, trailing the Dinos by just four points at the half.
The Tigers' relentless attack inside the paint ultimately translated into the fouling out of two key members of the Dinos' thin frontcourt, Wei Yung-tai and Chou Hung-yu, and a chance for the Tigers to upset the Dinos for the first time in team history.
The loss was a realty check for the Dinos, who had not lost a game in nearly a month. It also exposed their vulnerability in the middle should Tseng not be available for any extended period of time.
"Despite the loss, I am quite pleased with what our reserves were able accomplish," Dinos coach Lee Yun-kuan said.
"Even though A-Ding [Tseng] wasn't able to play, we still put up a good fight against a very good team."
Antelopes 83, Lions 71
Two more devastating losses by the winless Sina Lions over the weekend boosted their slide to a record-high 12 for the year.
The Lions missed their only realistic chance for a win before the annual all-star break on Feb. 19 in their loss to the ETTV Antelopes on Saturday when they failed to protect a three-point, halftime lead and fell into an all-too familiar second-half collapse that led to the 83-71 defeat.
Lions' scoring leader Luo Hsin-liang was held to 10 points -- well below his 17.2 points-per-game average prior to the game, as a result of tenacious defense by the Antelopes.
Hunters 83, Lions 64
Things went from bad to worse for Luo and company in their 83-64 result against the Hunters where the hapless Lions fell prey to a balanced Hunters' attack that placed all five of its starters in double-digit scoring.
Yang Tseh-yi, the Hunters' utility man, took every Lions' defender on him to school in his 22-point, six-assist outing.
He was able to shoot over defenders on the outside with his height advantage when the Lions put a smaller, quicker guard on him, or he would blow by a big man with his superb first step off the dribble.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier