Taiwan Beer showed off its bench depth and versatility in the SBL on Saturday by manhandling Kinmen Liquor 83-60 with only eight able bodies at the Hsinchu County Arena for its third win in the last four games.
With nearly half of the team out serving a one-game suspension for getting into a brawl last week, the defending champs still managed to put on a solid performance, led by power forwards Yang Jing-min and Lin “the Beast” Chih-jeh’s 47 combined points to down Kinmen Liquor in convincing fashion.
“It was a huge win for us because it really showed what we are made of,” said assistant coach Chou Jung-san after assuming the role of head coach for Yen Jia-hua, who is serving a two-game suspension.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Kinmen Liquor fell to a double-digit deficit early in the game and was forced out of its original game plan of exploiting Taiwan Beer’s shorthanded interior defense by launching long-range threes in the hopes of catching up.
The strategy would backfire as they converted only seven of 37 three-point attempts (19 percent), which played right into the hands of Taiwan Beer by keeping them less vulnerable to potential foul trouble.
PURE YOUTH 102, BANK OF TAIWAN 88
Scoring early and often, Pure Youth Construction thrashed Bank of Taiwan 102-88 on Saturday to bounce back from a lopsided loss to the Yulon Luxgens the evening before.
The victory not only nipped a four-game losing skid for the builders, but also helped them avenge an embarrassing loss to the last-placed Bankers in their last meeting on Jan. 18th, thanks to an outstanding effort by newly acquired forward Lin Tsong-ching. Lin’s game-high 24 points against his former club led a potent Pure Youth offense that placed a season-high six players in double-digit scoring.
The defensive specialist made the most of a rare start by hitting 12 of 19 shots from the field on the night.
Pure Youth put up 31 quick points in the opening quarter and never looked back despite several tenacious rallies by the bankers that reduced a 19-point deficit to as few as two.
TIGERS 80, LEOPARDS 66
Top-ranked Dacin Tigers picked up an easy 80-66 win over the Taiwan Mobile Leopards on Saturday with a brilliant outing from team icon Tien Lei to maintain a half-game lead over the second-placed Yulon Luxgens.
The crowd favorite and former league MVP led the Cats with a season-high 21 points, highlighted by a thunderous slam dunk in the closing minutes of the game.
The Leopards clearly felt the absence of American center Mario Boggan, who is out serving a four-game suspension, as the Tigers placed their point of attack inside the paint for the bulk of their point production.
With two more games remaining on Boggan’s four-game suspension against top-tier squads the Yulon Luxgens and Taiwan Beer, the Leopards will have to play even more zone defense than they already do to minimize the adverse impact that Boggan’s absence creates.
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Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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