Jonathan Sanders set a new season-high for most points scored in a single game with 43 on Friday night to guide the dmedia Numen to an easy 104-87 win over Bank of Taiwan at the Taipei County Sports Complex.
The league's best all-around player closed out last month by racking up 43 points, 21 rebounds and a half-dozen assists to account for more than half of the Numen's total offense.
Friday's double-20 performance against the bankers was Sanders' fourth straight and seventh in 23 games, making him the toughest player to defend in the game.
The bankers opened the game with a 9-0 run but quickly fell back to their usual form by missing several shots to allow the Numen to get back in the game and take a 20-19 lead after one quarter of play.
Sanders and the rest of the dmedia attack opened the second quarter with a fierce 23-3 run to claim a 20-plus point advantage before the bankers made up some grounds to end the half trailing 33-46.
After falling behind by as many as 21 points in the second half, the bankers were able to close the gap to 10 points behind the strong play of forwards Hsu Chih-chiang and Lin "Killer Bee" Chuin-fong.
But the Numen came up with big buckets every time the bankers tried to put together a rally to win it by 17.
The victory improved their season mark to 16-7, good enough to tie Taiwan Beer for a share of the second-place spot in the standings, just one game behind the top-ranked Yulon Dinos.
As for the bankers, it was a big defeat in more than one way as they lost starting point guard Jien Ming-fu for the rest of the season to a dislocated left shoulder in the third quarter.
Pure Youth 102, Leopards 77
Pure Youth Constructions had little trouble taming the Taiwan Mobile Leopards as they breezed past the cats in a 102-77 decision to keep their playoffs hope alive in the second game on Friday.
The builders took a sizable 28-17 lead after the initial quarter and never looked back, often shooting over the Leopards' 2-3 zone defense with 15 three-pointers in the game to make this one a laugher long before the final buzzer.
Six different players scored in double-digits for Pure Youth with Hong Chih-shang converting on six of nine three's to score a game-high 20 points on the night. Speedy forward James Mao also chipped in 18 with a season-high seven assists.
The Leopards lost two of their starters to injury during the first quarter to leave only seven able bodies on the team for skipper Cheng Chih-long to direct.
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