Kinmen Liquor bounced back comfortably from a disappointing loss to the Dacin Tigers on Saturday with a convincing 102-88 win over the Taiwan Mobile Leopards at the Taipei Municipal Gymnasium on Sunday to salvage a winning mark of 2-1 over an exhausting three-game weekend.
Following Friday night’s 100-83 win over Pure Youth Construction to jumpstart the three-game set, expectations were high for Kinmen Liquor to knock off the top-ranked Tigers in Saturday’s showdown.
While Kinmen Liquor put up a great fight against a talent-rich Dacin squad, they eventually lost the game 73-71.
It was only fitting that Kinmen Liquor would let out its frustration against the Leopards in Sunday’s weekend finale by dominating the Leopards from the get-go, with 54 first-half points en route to the rout.
Leading the attack for Kinmen Liquor was forward Wu Jia-long whose perfect 8-for-8 shooting from the field, including six three-pointers, proved too much for the Leopards’ renowned zone defense to handle.
Wu would end the game with a season-high 22 points.
As for the Leopards, newly acquired shooter Ou Yang Jing-hen netted a game-high 24 points against his former team, but that was not enough to help them pull off a win as they dropped two straight and five of the last six to fall to a 4-8 record.
TAIWAN BEER 93, PURE YOUTH 84
Yang Jing-min came off a sub-par game on Saturday with a game-high 25 points to lift Taiwan Beer past Pure Youth Construction in the final on Sunday.
The win kept them in stride with the second-place Yulon Luxgens, who also won their Sunday game.
Also starring for Taiwan Beer was center Wu Dai-hao who used every ounce of his size advantage over Pure Youth’s Jien Jia-hong for 19 points and 10 rebounds to complement Yang’s outside game.
The young builders kept themselves in the game on the strength of guard Hong Chih-shang’s five threes, giving him a total of 11 over a two-day span, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Beer crew from drowning them in the eventual loss.
LUXGENS 85, BANK OF TAIWAN 74
The Yulon Luxgens opened the game with a 13-0 run and went on to defeat Bank of Taiwan 85-74 on Sunday afternoon to win their third straight.
All-star center Tseng Wen-ding showed why he is still the premier big man in the league, with several thunderous dunks over a smaller Bankers’ interior defense that double-teamed him for the most part of the contest. Tseng would end up with 20 points and a dozen rebounds.
The loss by the Bankers marked their eighth straight as they fell to a dismal 1-11 record for the season.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
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