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SBL: Beer Crew hand Dinos their second loss

Yulon Dinos players try to block Taiwan Beer's Lin Chih-jeh, center, as he attempts to score at the Taipei County Sports Complex on Saturday. PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

It never rains, but it pours. That was the feeling in the Yulon Dinos locker room after their 77-85 loss to Taiwan Beer at the Taipei County Sports Complex on Saturday evening as they dropped back-to-back contests for the first time in nearly a year.

Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh and Ho Sho-cheng combined for 15 of Taiwan Beer's 23 points in the decisive fourth quarter to prevent the Dinos from rallying.

Following their shock loss to the Taiwan Mobile Leopards on Friday night that had ended the Dinos' record-tying 12-game winning streak, the Dinos seemed ready to vent their frustration on the Beer Crew before Saturday's match.

But the highly anticipated showdown between the top two squads in the league did not start off that way as Taiwan Beer had a 10-0 run midway through the first quarter to take a 26-15 lead after 10 minutes of play.

The momentum of the game would suddenly swing in favor of the Dinos as they went on a 20-2 run of their own -- behind a flurry of three-pointers by Chen "Airman" Hsin-an and Chen Chih-chung -- to erase the deficit and lead the game 43-40 at halftime.

After an emotional halftime talk, the Beer Crew finally played like defending champions with a solid 22-point third quarter to reclaim a 62-58 lead going into the final quarter.

Trailing by four, Yulon had a chance to keep it a two-point game with under a minute remaining when Lee Chih-yi received a perfect feed from Chen Hsin-an and had a wide open lay-up. But the usually sure-handed forward somehow misfired and that was as close as Yulon got.

Numen 89, Pure Youth 84

Poor free-throw shooting by Pure Youth Construction cost them the game as they fell five short of the dmedia Numen on Saturday afternoon, their fifth straight loss.

Down by a deuce, Pure Youth's Jien Jia-hong had a golden opportunity to force a tie with a pair of free throw attempts with 4 seconds remaining on the game clock.

But the second-year center simply could not overcome the pressure on the line and missed the first one badly.

That was all it took for dmedia to seal the win as they took control of the rebound off an intentional miss on Jien's second free throw attempt, giving the Numen their third straight win.

Leopards 78, Tigers 54

The Taiwan Mobile Leopards made it look easy against the Dacin Tigers with a convincing win in Saturday's final game, revenge for a bitter loss against the same opponents a week ago.

The Leopards carried their momentum from Friday night's upset victory over the previously undefeated Dinos into this game by jumping to a 22-14 lead after the opening quarter and never looked back en route to the 24-point rout.
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