Underdogs came up huge in two of the three games played in the SBL on Saturday with the Taiwan Mobile Leopards pulling off a 65-58 upset win over Taiwan Beer and the Bank of Taiwan shocking the Dacin Tigers 92-83 at the Taipei County Sports Complex.
Having lost two of their regular starters to injuries on Friday, the short-handed Leopards, previously 7-16, opened the game with an incredible 21-9 score after the first quarter and held off several Taiwan Beer rallies in a game in which they never trailed to earn the victory.
Taiwan Beer managed to tie the game up at 39-all midway through the third, but the Leopards made sure this one would not get away with clutch three-points from Hsu Wei-sheng and Wu Cheng-yu to reclaim a double-digit margin with less than four minutes remaining in the game to prevail in the end.
Failure to hit the three's and crash the board ultimately cost Taiwan Beer as the Leopards outplayed them by converting on 7 of 20 from behind the three-point line (compared to Taiwan Beer's 6-for-34 shooting) and outrebouding them by a 40-to-28 margin to seal the win long before the final buzzer.
The Leopards' victory keeps their slim playoff hopes alive as they trail the fourth-placed Pure Youth Constructions and the Dacin Tigers by three games in the standings with six games remaining in the regular season for the fourth-and-final postseason berth.
Bank of Taiwan 92, Tigers 83
Behind an incredible 15-point burst by Lin "Killer Bee" Chuin-fong, Bank of Taiwan found a way to tame the favored Dacin Tigers by outscoring the Cats 30-to-17 in a game-turning fourth quarter to win it 92-83.
After losing top point guard Jien Ming-fu for the rest of the season to a dislocated left shoulder on Friday night, the last-place Bankers did not have much to look forward to having already been eliminated from the post-season with a dead-last 3-20 record in an obvious rebuilding year.
And for the first 30 minutes of the game the Tigers led most of the way with backcourt tandem Wang Chih-chuin and team captain Chang Chih-fong leading the attack.
However, with his team trailing by four, Lin took charge by scoring 15 of Bank of Taiwan's 30 fourth-quarter points to claim the big come-from-behind victory.
Inability to hit their free throws with the game on the line proved to be the difference between the teams as the Tigers only hit 14 of 25 to tumble to a disappointing defeat.
Dinos 87, Numen 79
Overcoming a sluggish start in the first quarter, the top-ranked Yulon Dinos came on strong with a solid second half to humble the previously high-flying dmedia Numen 87-79 in a showdown between the top two squads in the league on Saturday afternoon.
With the top spot in the standings at stake the Dinos looked to veterans Chen Chih-chung and Chen "Airman" Hsin-fan with 47 combined points to get the job done.
Even though the Numen had red-hot Jonathan Sanders on their side, whose four straight double-20 efforts prior to the game had set a new standard for the best all-around player in the league, it was not nearly enough to topple the three-time champs.
Sanders ended up with 22 points and 11 rebounds to halt his double-20 streak at four straight, as the Dinos defense kept him off the glass.
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