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Asian Games: Team Taiwan too tough for Lebanon in basketball

Taiwan's Tseng Wen-ding and Lin Chin-jeh work together to grab the ball from a Lebanese player at the Asian Games in Doha yesterday. Taiwan jumped out to several big leads before going on to win 86-72. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES

Scoring early and often, Team Taiwan trounced Lebanon in an 86-72 decision late on Friday evening for its second victory of the basketball competition in the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

The win over the silver medalists of last year's Asian Championship virtually guaranteed Taiwan a spot in the upcoming quarterfinals next week as it prepares to take on a weaker squad from Uzbekistan, which is winless in its previous four contests, in an expected win tonight to wrap up the preliminaries.

The game began with Taiwan greeting its rival from the Middle East with a 14-3 run that set the tone for the rest of the way, led by versatile forward Chen "Airman" Hsin-an's (Yulon Dinos) monster three-pointer and two fast-break baskets by Taiwan in a fast-paced transition game.

Taiwan would extend its 13-point lead (28-15) after the opening quarter to as many as 22 points midway through the second quarter on the strength of a perimeter game that netted seven threes during the first 15 minutes of play before Lebanon finally found its shooting touch to close out the first half trailing Taiwan 50-33.

Top Lebanese scorer El Khatib El Cheikh Fadi, who sat out the first half nursing a back injury he sustained earlier this week, decided to make himself available in the second half.

It paid immediate dividends for his team as Lebanon swarmed back with several close-range lay-ups against a slow-shifting Taiwan zone defense, cutting the 17-point deficit to less than 10 points with three minutes remaining in the third quarter.

It took two clutch threes by reserve guard Chen Shih-nian (Taiwan Beer) in what turned out to be a 16-7 run late in the third quarter for Taiwan to run its cushion over the Lebanese back up to 70-52 heading into the final quarter.

Even though Lebanon would never break the 10-point barrier again the rest of the way, with Taiwan failing to establish a decent inside attack and opting to rely on mid-range jumpers instead, it was not until the one-minute mark that the Taiwan beach finally breathed a collective sigh of relief en route to victory.

"We are still not as comfortable as we would like to be offensively, even with a big lead we had," head coach Lee Yun-kuan (Yulon Dinos) said after the game.

All five of Lee's starters managed to score in double-digits in the game, with center Tseng Wen-ding (Dinos) leading the way by pouring in 21 points and pulling down twelve tough boards in a double-double effort.

Joining Tseng with his second double-double outing in a row was Tien Lei of the Dacin Tigers, whose game-high 14 rebounds along with 17 points presented headaches for Lebanon throughout the contest.
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