Scoring early and often, Team Taiwan crushed the Japanese in a 113-70 landslide victory in their first game of the 2006 William Jones' Cup Basketball Tournament to begin the nine-day competition with a bang.
Following an easy American win over the Australians by a 70-51 final, a 68-63 Qatar victory against Team Philippines and South Korea's 93-58 blowout over Kazakhstan at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium, the stage was set for the Taiwanese team to take on Team Japan.
And the hosts responded with a fast start that saw them leading the Japanese by a 30-13 margin after the first quarter before adding to their lead by 17 points in the second quarter to finish the first half with a commanding 61-27 lead.
Behind the hot shooting of perimeter threat Okada Yuske, Team Japan managed to play tough against the Taiwanese in a fairly even third quarter, by which time the entire Taiwanese bench had played in the game, making the fourth quarter a mere formality as the onslaught continued before the eventual 43-point Taiwanese rout.
Leading the attack for Taiwan were crowd favorites Tien Lei of the Dacin Tigers and the Yulon Dinos' all-star center Tseng Wen-ding, each with a team-high of 21 points in the game.
Rounding out the rest of a long list of double-digit scorers were Taiwan Beer great Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh, with 15 points, Videoland Hunters' scoring duo Yang Tseh-yi and Lee Chi-yi with 11 and 10 points respectively, and the Dinos' all-purpose man Chen "Airman" Hsin-an with 10 for the game.
"A win against Japan to start the tournament is always good, but a blowout win against them [Japan] was not what I had in mind," Taiwanese skipper Lee Yun-kuan said after the game, casting some concern over exactly how good his team really is this year.
"There are still a lot of things we can improve upon," Lee added.
Spearheading a lethargic attack for Team Japan was Okada with a game-high 26 points in a match that was already decided midway through the second quarter.
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