SBL: Missed free throws cost dmedia Numen the game

An unidentified Yulon Dinos player, left, blocks a shot from Chen Ching-wen of the Dacin Tigers during their SBL game at the Taipei County Sports Complex on Saturday. The Tigers won 76-75. PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Failure to make the free throws late in the game cost the dmedia Numen on Saturday as they dropped a heartbreaker to the Taiwan Mobile Leopards 90-91 in overtime at the Taipei County Sports Complex to close out the regular season on a whimper.

With under four seconds remaining in overtime and his team trailing 89-91, Numan's Jonathan Sanders had a chance to tie the game with a pair of free throw attempts and perhaps send the game into second overtime after he was fouled by the Leopards defense.

But the all-purpose forward from the US missed the second attempt after hitting the first.

Even though Numen would miraculously regain possession of the ball with an offensive rebound off Sanders' miss, Ouayng Jing-hen would miss both free throws after being fouled on the put-back attempt with time expiring to lose the game by a point.

The contest began with the Numen downing 10 straight three-pointers in an "all-three's" first quarter that had them leading the Leopards 30-25.

They would continue their long-range attack by scoring three three-pointer's at the beginning of the second quarter, before tapering off towards the end of the quarter to close out the first half leading 43-42.

With a shift to guard against the Numen's three-point attack paying off immediate dividends, the Leopards managed to go up by six by the end of the third quarter and actually led all the way to the final minute when Numen's Wang Nan-guei tied it with his tenth three-pointer of the game to send the game into overtime.

Wang would leave the game with a career-high 30 points, all of which had come in three-pointers.

Tigers 76, Dinos 75

The Dacin Tigers avoided what would have been a clean sweep against the Yulon Dinos by eking out a narrow 76-75 victory to finish the season with a 13-17 record.

Wang Chih-chuin's free throw with 1.5 second remaining broke a 75-75 stalemate and won the game.

"I guess it's a nice ending for us considering the fact that we never had a total healthy lineup during the season," Wang said after the game, referring to the Tigers' injury-plagued season.

The Tigers opened the game with a surprising 12-3 run against a slightly disorganized defense.

But the league-leaders would regroup in a hurry and close the gap to six points by the end of the first quarter and actually led it briefly at 26-24 before falling short to the Tigers by one at the half, 33-34.

A slew of three-pointers by the Tigers at the start of the second half quickly put the them ahead by eight, before the Dinos went on a 17-0 run to reclaim a seven-point advantage.

Dacin would close the gap once again with their long-range attack to tie the game at 75-75, before Wang's game-clinching free throw in the closing seconds.