Team Taiwan continued its dominance over Qatar in the semi-finals of this year's William Jones' Cup Basketball Tournament with an 83-63 blowout win last night at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium.
For the second time in three days, the home team battered the giants from West Asia with another 20-point victory, following Thursday night's 85-64 trouncing of the Qataris, to prove that it could play shoulder-to-shoulder with one of Asia's top teams.
After dropping a tough loss to South Korea on Friday night, Team Taiwan went into the contest against Qatar wondering if the win on Thursday was a fluke.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CTBA
But thanks to an outstanding effort by the entire squad, the outcome of game left no doubt in anyone's mind that Taiwan could be a title contender if it can play as a unit for four consistent quarters.
The game began with Taiwan greeting Qatar with a 7-2 run in the first three minutes of the contest, before Qatar answered with a 5-0 run of its own to knot things up at 7-all midway through the first quarter.
After several uncharacteristic turnovers by Qatar that helped Taiwan take a narrow 19-14 lead at the end of the first quarter, the game suddenly shifted in favor of the hosts, as Qatar was held scoreless for the first three minutes of the second quarter, only two points through the first seven minutes, before three straight three-pointers by Saad Abdulrahman helped pull Qatar within ten of Taiwan (35-25) by the end of the first half.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CTBA
Six three pointers by five different Taiwanese players in the third quarter led the way for Taiwan in a 24-point quarter as it boosted its ten-point, halftime lead over Qatar to 16 points heading into the final quarter.
Never letting up, Taiwan worked a tenacious 2-3 zone defense to near perfection by upping its lead to 20 points with under five minutes to play in the game.
Qatar was able to rally with a number of 4-0 and 5-0 runs in the earlier part of the second half.
But Tien Lei of the Dacin Tigers would hit key three-pointers to stop the Qataris from breaking the double-digit barrier, as Taiwan enjoyed a sizable cushion throughout the second half.
Tien would finish out the game with 19 points, 15 of which came by way of five rally-killing three's in his best outing of the tournament so far.
Also starring for Team Taiwan, were the Yulon Dinos standout guard Lee Hsueh-lin and center Tseng Wen-ding, whose hard drives to the basket caused several defensive breakdowns for Qatar and formidable presence inside the paint respectively were the key reasons why Taiwan had such little trouble in the game.
The win put Taiwan into the title game for the second time in as many years, assuring the home team at least a silver-medal finish for the second straight time.
However, with an all-star cast from the Super Basketball League (SBL) in Tseng, Tien, Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh, and Chen "Airman" Hsin-an, all playing as a group for the first time in what many considered Taiwan's own "Dream Team," anything less than a gold-medal finish would be considered a big letdown for Taiwan.
South korea 86 Taiwan 74
Despite losing its final preliminary-round game to South Korea in an 86-74 decision at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium on Friday night, Team Taiwan managed to beat out the 3-4 Kazakhstan to qualify for the fourth-and-final spot in the medal round of this year's William Jones' Cup Basketball tournament with a 4-3 record.
Kazakhstan would have taken Taiwan's spot in the medal round had it beaten Team USA in its final game of the preliminary round on Friday to finish with an identical 4-3 record on the merit of winning the head-to-head contest against Taiwan last Tuesday.
Instead, the hosts kept their run for the title alive, thanks to the US squad, which finished the game strong against Kazakhstan to pull away in an 84-74 triumph.
Playing without its top center Tseng Wen-ding (Yulon Dinos), out with an ankle injury that he sustained in the game against Qatar on Thursday, Team Taiwan fell behind 11-3 in the early stages of the opening quarter.
It took an 8-0 run by the Taiwanese in the latter part of the first quarter to cool off the South Koreans who led after the first quarter by a score of 22-21.
Neither team was able to skid ahead with leads larger than five points in an evenly fought second quarter with South Korea hitting five three-pointers in the quarter alone, while Taiwan resorted to forwards Lee Chi-yi (Videoland Hunters) and Chen "Airman" Hsin-an (Yulon Dinos) for the bulk of the scoring to close out the first half trailing by 48-44.
A solid third quarter by Team Taiwan, led by Chen's seven points in the quarter, would cut the South Korean lead to just one by the end of the third.
The home team actually enjoyed a brief lead in the early minutes of the fourth quarter before allowing its opponents to claim a 76-70 advantage with five minutes remaining in the contest.
But a 10-0 run by South Korea in the final three minutes of the game, after the Taiwanese squad had fought so hard to come within a deuce ultimately proved too much to overcome.
Poor shooting from behind the three-point line (5-for-28) was to blame for the loss, as it failed to draw out a South Korean squad that played zone defense for much of the game.
Defensively for Team Taiwan, an inability to contain the three-point attack by South Korea, which hit a dozen long range efforts in the game made it even more difficult to win.
"The last thing we wanted to see was to get into a three-point shooting contest with them (South Korea), because we know they have the edge there," head coach Lee Yun-kuan of Taiwan said after the game.
Five different players scored in double-digits for Taiwan in the game with Tien Lei (Dacin Tigers), Chen, and Lee netting 14 points each, followed by guards Lee Hsueh-lin's (Yulon Dinos) 12 and Yang Tseh-yi's ten (Videoland Hunters).
As for South Korea, big man Sang-oh Park's 20 points led all scorers in the game.
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