Yueh Ying-li's timely surge off the bench led a second-half rally by the Dacin Tigers as they overcame a half-time deficit to top Team Afghanistan 79-66 in the final game of the preliminaries at the 2007 Hualien Probation Basketball Invitational Tournament on Saturday night.
The newest member of the Tigers pack, who spent the past four seasons with Bank of Taiwan, came off the Dacin bench and sank a pair of long three's on top of a put-back basket in the final minutes of the third quarter to give his team its first lead of the half.
He then hit two more three's in the final quarter to seal the victory.
"That was a game we rally couldn't afford to lose because it would send us all the way down to fourth place [in the Group B standings], so we just went out and did our best," Yueh said after the win as the Tigers rumbled their way into the championship game versus Group A's top finishers, South Korea.
Afghanistan took advantage of a slow start by the runners-up in May's SBL Finals and muscled its way to a slim 23-22 lead after the first quarter before adding to the lead by four with a solid second quarter to round out the first half leading 40-35.
Playing their second game of Saturday's day-night doubleheader finally took its toll in the second half for the Afghanistan nationals as they failed to keep up with the Tigers' fast-pace offense and ran on fumes in the final the quarter before falling short in the end.
In addition to Yueh's excellent second half, Game 1 hero for the Tigers, Chen Tzu-wei, who hit a clutch three in the final seconds to help his team beat the Ryukyu Golden King of Japan's BJ League, also nailed a pair of three-pointers in the closing minutes on the night to seal the victory for Dacin.
Dmedia 101, Philippines 97 (2OT)
Dmedia needed two overtimes to send the winless Philippines to its fourth straight defeat, outlasting their Filipino counterparts in a three-plus hour marathon before prevailing 101-97 in the extra session.
Foul trouble and a couple of injuries forced the Philippines to play with only four men against for the final two and a half minutes of the game.
Down by three in the closing seconds of regulation time, a long three-pointer by dmedia's newly acquired guard Lin Guan-luen forced the game into the first overtime.
Dmedia had a chance to finish off the Philippines towards the end of the first overtime but Ou-Yang Jing-hehn only managed to sink one of two free throws, which extended the game into a second overtime, setting the stage for a dramatic finish.
Dinos 88, Pure Youth 81
The Yulon Dinos had little trouble beating Pure Youth in their final game of the preliminaries with an 88-81 win on Saturday afternoon.
Playing without three of their regular starters, the three-time SBL champs were still able to build leads as large as 20 points midway through the third quarter behind a stellar effort by Yang Tseh-yi before sending in the reserves to play the entire final quarter that made the final score seem closer than it really was.
Taiwan Beer 101, Malaysia 78
Taiwan Beer cruised past Team Malaysia without much resistance despite missing the services of two of its regular starters to win 101-78.
A tough loss to the Dinos in the opener followed by a defeat by South Korea left the SBL champs with little to play for as they had no chance of making it to the title game.
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