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SBL: `Beast' grabs Player of the Week

Lin ''The Beast'' Chih-jeh of Taiwan Beer plays in a Super Basketball League game on Sunday. PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Regaining his tenacious style of play, Taiwan Beer forward Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh grabbed the Player of the Week honor in the Super Basketball League this week for his outstanding contribution in helping the beer crew to three straight wins last week.

The potent scorer for Taiwan Beer, who has won the scoring title in two of the past four seasons, finally ridded himself from a shoulder injury that had bothered him since last summer and played like the league's Most Valuable Player from last season with 13.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game over a three-game stretch to win the weekly award for the first time this season.

"I am actually a bit shocked about winning it [the Player of the Week] since some of the other guys on the team also had a great week, but I am all for it," the Beast said after learning of his selection. Two of his teammates, Wu Dai-hao and Ho Sho-cheng also came in a close second and third in the voting respectively to show how dominating Taiwan Beer was last week.

The Beast actually started off his week of play last week with a rather ordinary game in terms of point production (2) in a blowout win over the Bank of Taiwan. But he managed to come around in Saturday's big win over the Yulon Dinos by putting up a dozen points and seven assists to contribute in other ways before erupting for nine three-pointers on a 27-point effort in Sunday's triumph over Taiwan Mobile Leopards.

His selection to the weekly honor also marked the first time in six weeks that someone other than the Dinos' Chen "Airman" Hsin-an or dmedia Numen great Jonathan Sanders has won the award, with the Airman earning the nod three times and Sanders taking it home twice.

Next up for the Beast and his beer crew will be the free-falling Dacin Tigers in what should be a relatively easy win for Taiwan Beer tomorrow afternoon since Dacin will be playing without its top player Tien Lei and point guard Wang Chih-chuin, and has lost five straight.

Following tomorrow's game against the Tigers will be a tough battle facing the Numen who also won both of their games last week, despite some off-court trouble that has taken up a lot of media attention as of late.

Tonight's Games

Kicking off this week's play in the SBL will be a match between Pure Youth Constructions and Bank of Taiwan with tip-off scheduled at 6pm tonight at the Taipei County Sports Complex in Sinjhuang, before the night cap between the Numen and the Tigers at 8pm.

It will be interesting to see if the last-placed bankers can pull off an upset win over Pure Youth who is coming off a big win of their own over the Tigers last Sunday. The health of promising forward Hsu Chih-chiang will play a key role in this game because Hsu has quietly overtaken the leading man's role over the first dozen games for the bankers as their lone and most consistent scorer.

As for the builders, nothing would please rookie head coach Hsu Jin-tseh more than winning this one to make it two in a row for the first time this season.

In the contest between dmedia and the injury-plagued Tigers, the Numen should have a field day against a weak Tigers interior defense that is at least 20kg lighter and 6cm shorter than their opponents.

Unless skipper Wu Jien-guo plans to rest his top gun Sanders after a big lead, the American all-purpose forward should have a double-20 game tonight with an overwhelming advantage on the rebounding war against the Dacin defense.
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