Outplaying their opponents in all facets of the game, the Videoland Hunters trounced Taiwan Beer in a 99-86 decision at the Taipei Physical Education College Gym-nasium on Saturday afternoon.
Unbeaten in all seven of their contests thus far, the league leaders remained a perfect 7-0 for the season.
The Hunters' outstanding lineup features versatile forward Jonathan Sanders of the US, who leads the league with an average of 15.1 total rebounds per game. Sanders is also second in scoring with 25.3 points per game.
The Hunters' defense is also the stingiest around, yielding only 78.8 points per game.
The much anticipated showdown between the top two squads in the standings did not live up to its billing as the Hunters quickly jumped out to a 24-16 lead after the opening quarter thanks to a great effort by Sanders, whose eleven points in the quarter accounted for nearly half of the Hunters' total offense.
What was a single-digit lead for the Hunters suddenly doubled in the second quarter after several misses by Taiwan Beer that turned into four easy fast-break baskets for the Hunters to help build a comfortable 47-29 advantage at the half.
The 29 points by the beer crew was the lowest total in a half for them thus far this season.
An all-out counterattack by Taiwan Beer netted the men in green 21 points in the third quarter, sending the game into the final quarter with the Hunters still leading 70-50.
Taiwan Beer was forced to throw up mostly three-point shots during the fourth quarter in a desperate comeback attempt.
But even the 36 points they ultimately scored in the final quarter were not enough to pull off the win as the Hunters kept the cushion at double digits the entire way.
Four different Hunters players scored 10 points or more in the game with Sanders leading the way with 30.
Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh's 27 points, with 14 in the final quarter, and fellow shooter Ho Sho-cheng's 26 led the beer crew.
Tigers 92, Eagles 79
A dismal third quarter by the Azio Eagles in which they managed only nine points dug a hole too deep for them to overcome as they lost to the Dacin Tigers by a 92-79 margin on Saturday evening.
The hapless Eagles, winless in all six of their games so far this season, managed to hang on against a clearly superior Dacin squad during a high-scoring first quarter that ended with the cats leading 30-26.
That was as close as they were able to get against a Tigers attack that showed little mercy and actually took leads as big as 20 points before closing out the ordeal by playing mostly reserves in the fourth quarter.
Needing the win in a very desperate way, the Tigers snapped a three-game losing skid to remain competitive in the league.
Dinos 88, Bank of Taiwan 78
The Yulon Dinos cruised to an easy 88-78 win over Bank of Taiwan, winners of five in a row after starting the season with back-to-back losses, to force a second-place tie with Taiwan Beer at 5-2 for the year.
The defending champs took a convincing 25-18 lead after the opening quarter, thanks to 18 combined points by power forward Chen "Airman" Hsin-an and perimeter threat Chou Shih-yuan, and never looked back in a game that was well over by the halftime buzzer.
All twelve of the Dinos players made their way into the scorebook with skipper Lee Yun-kuan deciding to send in his bench early in the second half.
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