Lee Wei-min's long-range three-pointer with 18.2 seconds remaining in the game sealed it for the Videoland Hunters as they downed the ETTV Antelopes by an 80-73 final score in Taipei on Sunday evening to end the week with a 2-1 record.
Lee managed to redeem himself for missing a pair of free throws around the one-minute mark with the game-clincher. In doing so, he helped to trip up an Antelopes squad that had won a huge game against Taiwan Beer the night before and kept the Hunters' playoff hopes alive.
Lee shot one-for-five from behind the three-point line, but one proved to be enough.
The Hunters enjoyed a three-point advantage after the first quarter (18-15) but the second quarter was dead even with each team adding another 16 points.
The third quarter was another dead heat, so it was only in the fourth that the Antelopes evened things up at 73-all. In the end though, they fell short by seven.
Jonathan Sanders had another fine game for the Hunters with 23 points and a dozen boards to lead all players in both categories. A monstrous dunk off a miss by fellow guard Yang Tseh-yi brought the crowd to its feet and also put the Hunters ahead for good.
The Antelopes' "twin-tower offense," focused around power forwards Delvin Thomas and Wu Dai-hao, was no match for the Hunters on the night.
Taiwan Beer 94, Bank of Taiwan 90
Second-placed Taiwan Beer barely avoided an embarrassing loss to the sixth-placed Bank of Taiwan (4-16) with a narrow 94-90 win on Sunday to stay within a half-game of the league-leading Yulon Dinos.
Despite their dismal season record and a seven-game losing streak going into the contest, the bankers gave the beer crew a scare by answering every challenge that coach Yen Jia-hua threw at them to trail by only a deuce after three quarters of play (66-64).
It took a 11-2 spurt by the beer crew midway through the final quarter to build a 10-point lead, only for the bankers to counter by pounding the ball inside the paint to reduce the deficit to four (94-90) with a minute remaining.
That was as close as they got, however, as neither team could score again.
Six different players scored at least 10 points for a balanced Taiwan Beer attack in the game, led by Lin "The Beast" Chih-jeh's 19.
Equally impressive was a bankers squad that saw three different players contribute 20 points or more to a losing effort; 22, 21, and 20 points coming from forwards Yang Jing-min, Hsu Chih-chiang and Chen Hsuen-shiang respectively.
Tigers 96, Eagles 85
A total defensive breakdown by the Azio Eagles allowed the Dacin Tigers to ring up 36 points during the third quarter for a 96-85 win.
Carrying tremendous momentum from their incredible win over the top-ranked Dinos on Saturday evening, the Eagles outplayed the Tigers in the first half that ended with them leading 45-42.
Then came a dreadful third quarter for the Eagles as the Tigers found a way to break down their defense and net a season-high 36 points in a single quarter. The Tigers also implemented a tenacious full-court press that forced several turnovers to claim a 78-63 lead by the start of the fourth quarter.
Although the Eagles were able to cut the deficit to seven with an 8-0 run midway through the fourth quarter, it was too little too late as the Tigers' Wang Chih-chuin promptly nailed a pair of threes to reclaim a double-digit lead, practically closing out the game.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier