Chang Chih-fong's ball-denying defense against big man Lai Guo-hung completely neutralized the Videoland Hunters' low post attack in the second half of Game 3, lifting the Dacin Tigers past the Hunters in the 65-62 in their series-clinching win on Sunday.
After losing Game 1 of the series 102-99 last Friday, the big cats took two straight from the Hunters in the best-of-three series to advance into the championship round, where defending champs, the Yulon Dinos, await them with the league's most potent lineup.
Unlike the two previous contests where the offense had dictated the pace of game in a pair of high-scoring affairs, Sunday's game was extremely slow, with both clubs running a controlled half-court offense.
PHOTO: SBL
With the right to advance in the playoffs on the line, neither team wanted to make any unforced errors, as the Tigers led 17-15 after one quarter of play.
The second quarter was all Lai of the Hunters doing serious damage inside the paint, as the veteran center scored 17 of the 19 Hunters' points in the quarter, easily handling every Tiger defender that was assigned to guard him.
Needing to shut down Lai, Tigers coach Liu Jia-fa asked his top defender Chang Chih-fong, despite Chang's height disadvantage (a 16cm height differential), to contain the Hunters' inside threat by denying him the entry pass.
And Chang promptly responded by holding Lai to just three points from the middle of the third quarter after he had rung up 25 points in the first half.
"I guess because of the big height difference, Lai really couldn't figure out which side I was going to favor on defense. Maybe that's what was actually bothering him," Chang said after the game.
With Lai being taken out of their offensive scheme, the Hunters managed to score only 14 points in the third and fourth quarters, allowing the Tigers to take a six-point lead with under a minute to play.
Even though Lee Chi-yi of the Hunters then hit a key three-pointer to pull his team within three points of the Tigers and the Hunters actually had possession of the ball for the last shot in the game, poor clock management by the Hunters in the final seconds ultimately cost them the game.
Lai left the game mid-way through the fourth quarter on a controversial offensive-charge call that could have gone either way when he knocked down Chang while driving strong to the hoop. Had he remained in the game, the Hunters may have had the last laugh.
"There couldn't have been a better acting job on that charge call," Hunters coach Chung Chih-mong said after the game. "The refs really screwed us with that lousy call."
Game 1 of the best-of-five championship round between the Dinos and the Tigers will begin Thursday at 7:30pm at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium.
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