Yang and Sanders lead Hunters to victory

Videoland Hunters' captain Yang Cheh-yi (楊哲宜) and US star Jonathan Sanders scored 23 points each as the Videoland Hunters beat Yulon Dinos 94-85 to claim third place in the SBL in Taipei yesterday.

Five Hunters' players scored 10 points or more.

Five Dinos players also managed double digit scores but that did not help last year's champions from finishing the season in fourth place, the Dinos worst-ever SBL showing.

Chen Chih-chung (陳志忠), the Dinos top scorer with 15 points, was quoted in a report on the SBL Website as apologizing to supporters and saying that, "We will learn from this lesson and come back next year!"

Hunters 79, Dinos 65

Holding the Yulon Dinos to a measly six points in the first quarter, the Videoland Hunters set the tone early in the game before cruising to an impressive 79-65 win on Friday to take Game three in the consolation round.

The win put the Hunters in the driving seat as they now lead the series by a 2-1 margin over the defending champs, one win short of clinching the best-of-five postseason matchup.

The Hunters caught the Dinos dozing off in getting back on defense on more than one occasion with several 3-on-1 fastbreak finishes in their total domination of the Dinos.

Two ill-advised fouls by Tseng Wen-ding in the early part of the game also hurt the Dinos tremendously as they were forced to deviate from a game plan that had been built around the all-star center to exploit the Hunters interior defense with his size and quickness advantage.

Instead, skipper Lee Yun-kuan had to settle for playing a perimeter game that did not have its usual accuracy, suffering their biggest margin of loss ever in the postseason.

Jonathan Sanders led a balanced Hunters attack that placed four different players in double-digit scoring with his game-high 17 points.

As for the Dinos, point guard Chen Chih-chung's team-high 15 points was the lone bright spot on a night when not much went right for the defending champs.

Tigers 89, Taiwan Beer 71

Another 32-point effort by Tien Lei along with Chen Tsu-wei's solid showing off the bench lifted the Dacin Tigers to an easy 89-71 thrashing of Taiwan Beer in Game 3 of the SBL Finals on Friday night, giving them a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

A sellout crowd of 4,000-plus at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium witnessed the Tigers consistent scoring tandem do what they knew best by accounting for 50 of their 89 total offense with seven combined three-pointers and countless strong drives to the hoop to humble a squad from Taiwan Beer that have lost two straight after claiming the series-opener a week ago.

"We flat out stunk up the place tonight," a disgusted Taiwan Beer head coach Yen Jia-hua said after the game, holding nothing back in the post-game press conference.? His side will have to claim three of the next four if Taiwan Beer wishes to win its first ever championship.

Strong plays by Tien and shooting guard Chang Chih-fong helped the Tigers open up a 24-18 lead after the first quarter, despite a 15-point effort by top Taiwan Beer scorer Lin "The Beast" Chih-jeh.? Then came the four three's from Chen during an all-Tigers second quarter as Dacin claimed leads as large as 20 points to exert a commanding 49-32 advantage at the half.

Even though Taiwan Beer would regroup with a slew of long-range three's that brought it to within five of the Tigers at one point during the third quarter, the Tigers never lost control as they answered with two 6-0 scoring runs to bag the big "W" long before the final buzzer sounded.

Inability to keep the Tigers off the offensive glass cost Taiwan Beer the game as Dacin successfully converted several put-back baskets that were devastating to the seemingly out-of-sync Taiwan Beer defense.? A sub-par performance by three-point threat Ho Sho-cheng also attributed to the Taiwan Beer's defeat as the supporting cast failed to complement the Beast's 23-point outing with only two other men scoring in double-digits.

In contrast to Taiwan Beer, the Tigers were in control for the entire game with a motion offense that passed the ball well against the zone defense by Taiwan Beer and was patient in finding the opened man.

"We are exactly where we want to be as far as getting our offense to peak at the right time.? But everyone knows what they [Taiwan Beer] can do too, in terms of racking up the points in a hurry," Dacin coach Liu Jia-fa said after the game.?

His team is now two wins shy of accomplishing the unprecedented feat of a fourth-seeded team winning the Finals.