The Dacin Tigers committed the cardinal sin of all sports. They underestimated their opponents in Saturday's contest at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium against the ETTV Antelopes, resulting in an embarrassing 98-85 loss for the second-place cats.
Even though both clubs did not have much to play for in terms of their respective postseason statuses, with the Tigers having already secured a second-seed berth in the playoffs and the Antelopes being eliminated over a month ago, it was nonetheless a good chance work off some rust after a three-week break.
The Antelopes held a potent Tigers offense scoreless in the first two minutes before ending the first quarter leading 23-12.
After the Tigers finally got back on track with a decent second quarter that cut the Antelopes lead to seven (35-28) by the end of the first half, they never seemed comfortable playing in their first game since March 12.
The offense took over the game for both teams in the second half, with the Tigers ringing up 31 third-quarter points to come within one of the Antelopes (51-50).
But sharp shooter Yang Yu-ming of the Antelopes would answer every Tiger's run with one amazing shot after another in a game where the Antelopes never trailed.
His game-high 30 points marked the fourth time this season that the Antelopes' lead scorer had scored at least 30 in a contest.
Tien Lei of the Tigers had his 18th double-double of the season with 28 points and 12 rebounds.
Dinos 106, YMY 83
The defending champions made it look easy against YMY in a 106-83 decision that sent YMY to its 25th straight defeat of the season.
Power forward Lu Cheng-rue showed no mercy, scoring a team-high 20 points to lead a balanced Dinos attack with five players in double-digit scoring.
Having already earned a top-seed berth in the postseason with a 23-6 regular season record, the Dinos played all 12 men during the game. But it did not stop them from scoring at least 25 points in each quarter for their league-best sixth game with 100 points or more.
YMY looked to team leader Luo "The Natural" Hsin-liang for the bulk of their scoring early and then turned to big men Jien Jia-hong and Hsieh Chih-wei with an inside game to finish off the contest.
Luo scored his usual team-high of 22 points, followed by Jien's 16 and Hsieh's 14.
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