Statistically, Lee Hsueh-lin did not have a particularly good game on Friday night. Three of his Yulon Dinos teammates outscored the nine points he managed against the Dacin Tigers at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium.
But it was his clutch three-pointer with less than a minute remaining in the game that broke a 91-91 stalemate to help his team edge past the Tigers 94-93 for its fourth straight win.
The showdown between two of the league's premier offenses lived up to its billing early on with the Dinos taking a 27-23 lead after the first quarter and upping their lead to as much as 15 points by the 3:00 mark in the second quarter before the Tigers went on a 9-0 run to close out the first half trailing the defending champions 53-48.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Second half action began with the Tigers opting to bombard the Dinos with long-rang three's and it proved effective early on as they managed to tie the score at 63-63 on Tigers' forward Lee Fong-yong's three-pointer.
spark
That was when Dinos guard Chou Shih-yuan decided take matters into his own hands with back-to-back three's to spark what ended up being a 15-7 run to earn the Dinos a 79-71 lead heading into the final quarter.
Their advantage would remain at eight points through the first six minutes of the fourth with Chen "Airman" Hsin-an picking up the scoring slack for the Dinos on several drives to the hoop and two three's in the quarter.
But it was the Tigers' Tien Lei, who netted six points in a key run to level the scores at 91-91 on the 1:18 mark, setting the stage for Lee's late heroics.
Three different Dinos players scored 20 or more points in the game led by all-star center Tseng Wen-ding's team-high 29.
As for the hapless Tigers, losers of three straight, with the last two decided by three points or less, all five of the starters scores reached double-figures, with Tien leading the pack with a season-high 35 points, eleven boards and three assists.
Bank of Taiwan 66, Antelopes 92
Solid showings by Huang Bao-tzu, Cheng Ren-wei and Yang Yu-ming powered the ETTV Antelopes past Bank of Taiwan in a 92-66 triumph in Game Two on Friday night to break the Antelopes' three-game losing streak.
ETTV celebrated the return of Delvin Thomas from a three-week absence with a knee injury with a great second half that turned a three-point halftime lead (36-33) into a 26-point blowout victory.
Even though Thomas ended the night with only four points in 36-plus minutes of play, his presence was certainly felt by the rest of the squad as the eleven rebounds and four big blocked shots (both game-high's) by the US muscleman more than changed the bankers' offensive approach throughout the contest.
value
"He [Thomas] did not have to score a lot of points to show his value to us," Antelopes headman Chiou Da-chung said after the game. "The fact that we knew he was there for us on court was more than enough," Chiou said.
What had been a hard-fought first half, with the Antelopes hanging on to a slim three-point margin, changed into an Antelopes-dominated second half, that saw them outplay a sluggish Bankers' team that left their drive in the locker room after the first intermission.
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