Rookie guard Chen Shih-jeh's crafty steal and the ensuing lay-up with under a minute to play capped an amazing comeback rally to give YMY a 79-77 win over the previously unbeaten Videoland Hunters at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium on Sunday.
Down by as many as 24 points in the third quarter, YMY played a near-perfect final 15 minutes to accomplish a mission impossible after the Hunters held a commanding 44-27 lead at the half.
While the Hunters could seem to do no wrong in a lopsided first half, YMY struggled with scoring in an inconsistent perimeter game.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SBL
The Hunters' lead hit 24 midway through the third quarter, when YMY turned up the defensive pressure with a full-court press.
The change led to turnovers, fast-break and scoring opportunities, resulting in a 22-point third quarter.
With the momentum on its side and fatigue from playing their second straight game in as many days taking its toll for the Hunters by then, YMY's Luo Hsin-liang hit a game-tying three-pointer with 45 seconds left to play, setting the stage for Chen's late-game heroics.
Four different YMY players scored in double-digits, led by Chen's 16 points, eight rebounds and four steals -- ?all game-highs for the rookie.
The Hunters appeared to have underestimated their opponents.
"There is no explanation for what happened out there," Hunters coach Chou Hai-rong said after the game. "They [YMY] simply wanted the game more than we did. It's a great lesson for us in terms of how quickly the game can change."
Taiwan Beer 83, Antelopes 74
Taiwan Beer ended the weekend 2-0 with an 83-74 victory over the ETTV Antelopes on Sunday.
Taiwan Beer played like a unit for the first time this season with a balanced attack that featured four players scoring 12 points of more.
Power forward Shang Wei-fang, the brew masters' big catch during the offseason, showed his former club his true worth by putting up a dozen points on offense and clogging up the middle on defense.
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