Led by another valiant effort from Chen "Airman" Hsin-an (Yulon Dinos), Team Taiwan finally cracked a win on Monday night with a thrilling 81-79 victory over Kazakhstan in the basketball competition of the 2006 Asian Games at Doha, Qatar.
Scoring 24 points for the second straight contest, Chen Hsin-an played head-and-shoulders above his peers by carrying the bulk of the offensive load for Taiwan with several clutch baskets, often against double-team coverage, to rally his team from a late-game deficit for the win.
It was his two free-throws with 10.4 seconds remaining in the game that snapped a 79-79 tie and put Taiwan ahead for good in the game which ended 81-79.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The match began with Taiwan swarming all over Kazakhstan in a gang-busting start, taking leads as large as a dozen points midway through the first quarter.
But the bronze medalists from the last Asian Games fought back with an 8-2 run of their own to close out the quarter trailing Taiwan by only six points (23-17).
Tseng Wen-ding's (Yulon Dinos) outstanding defensive presence inside the paint and his midrange jumpers helped Taiwan maintain its six-point cushion for most of an evenly fought second quarter, with the first half ending 37-33.
Two monstrous three-pointers by Tien Lei (Dacin Tigers) helped to increase Taiwan's lead to 10 points early in the third quarter, before back-to-back three's from Kazakhstan's Rustam Yargaliyev pulled his team to within three points of Taiwan heading into the game-deciding fourth quarter.
Opting for a more conservative approach in a tight final quarter, Kazakhstan decided to exploit its height advantage over Taiwan by pounding the ball in the low-post area. The strategy nearly pulled off a win for Kazakhstan, as it took a 79-78 lead on a three-pointer by Dmitriy Koronikov with 44 seconds to play in the game.
Chen then took over the game for Taiwan by sinking a game-tying free-throw on the ensuing possession and the game-winner with 10.4 seconds left on the clock.
Four different players scored in the double-digits for Taiwan with Chen's game-high 24 points leading the way, followed by Tien's 19, Tseng's dozen and shooting guard Yang Tseh-yi's (Videoland Hunters) 11.
For Kazakhstan, Koronikov led the way with 19, followed by Yargaliyev and Yevgeniy Issakov with 16 and 14 points respectively.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB