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SBL: 'Airman' comes through for Dinos against Leopards

Nearly blowing a 25-point lead in the fourth-quarter, the Yulon Dinos needed a strong finish from Chen "Airman" Hsin-an who scored the final six points for his team in the game to preserve an 89-80 win over the Taiwan Mobile Leopards at the Taipei County Sports Complex Sunday afternoon.

The win not only avenged the Dinos' earlier loss to the Leopards which denied the league-leaders a chance to set a new mark for longest winning streak (13), but also maintained a two-game cushion for Yulon over the second-place Taiwan Beer as they head into the 12-day long Chinese New Year break.

Former Dinos Hsu Wei-sheng and Liu Sheng-yao played a brilliant first half by combining for 21 of the Leopards' 36 points to actually give their team a surprising 36-35 lead at the half against the top-ranked club in the league.

But the Dinos would take their game to another level with 30 points in the third quarter while holding the Leopards to a meagerly dozen to claim a comfortable 65-48 advantage and eventually led by as many as 25 points before an all-out rally by the Leopards nearly turned the tide in the end.

"What happened tonight further proved the point that no lead is ever big enough in this game," Dinos head coach Lee Yun-kuan said after the game.

The loss by the Leopards was their seventh straight as they continued a midseason slump that had set them back from a respectable 6-7 record that was good enough for fourth place in the standings at one point in the season to a disappointing 6-14 mark that is only better than the 3-17 Bank of Taiwan.

Pure Youth 71, Taiwan Beer 84

Wu Dai-hao led a fierce attack that poured in 52 points in the first half as Taiwan Beer cooled off red-hot Pure Youth Constructions in an 84-71 victory on Sunday to cap off the weekend with a perfect 3-0 record.

Following its incredible come-from-behind win over the bankers the night before, many had thought that the beer crew was emotionally drained out and was considered sitting ducks in an uphill battle versus a builders' squad that had won five in a row.

Instead, the men in their familiar green limited the Pure Youth offense which had averaged over 102 points per game over the past four games, to 71 total points on the night with a horrendous 4-for-13 shooting from behind the three-point line.

Other than Wu's total dominance inside the paint, Taiwan Beer also fired at will from the perimeters against a worn-out builders' club en route to the monstrous win.

Five different Taiwan Beer players scored in double-digits with Wu leading the way with 21 points and 18 rebounds while Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh contributed 15 and a game-high six assists. Veteran forward Shang Wei-fang also filled in nicely with 14 in the game for an injured Ho Sho-cheng who did not dress for the game.

Numen 79, Tigers 75

Behind 23 points and 20 rebounds by all-purpose Jonathan Sanders in his fourth double-20 outing of the season, the dmedia Numen downed the Dacin Tigers by a 79-75 margin to salvage a 1-1 split in a tough two-game sequence for the weekend.

Though never by more than five points, the Tigers managed to hold a lead through the first three quarters until a 7-0 run by the Numen midway through the fourth turned the tide in favor of dmedia.

Even though the Tigers would tie the game up at 71-all and 73-all in the final two minutes, that was as close as they came as Sanders took over the game from that point to deliver the victory.
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