Bank of Taiwan won their second straight game in as many days at the Kaohsiung Fengshan Gymnasium last night, topping the Taiwan Mobile Leopards 92-84 in front of an enthusiastic crowd for their seventh win of the season.
Chen Jung-jeh’s superb shooting from behind the three-point arc (seven for 10) on a 25-point effort led the Bankers’ offense that converted more than half of their three-point attempts (12 for 19) to chase the Leopards off the court.
The fourth-year guard rose to the occasion on a night where the Leopard defense focused mainly on top Banker scorers Chen Hsuen-shiang and Hsu Chih-chiang, making the Leopards pay dearly for the decision.
Photo courtesy of the Super Basketball League
“I am not surprised that he [Chen Jung-jeh] shot this well because we have some excellent shooters on our team,” Banker captain Hsu said after the game, referring to Chen Jung-jeh’s outstanding performance.
The Bankers came out firing with Hsu and Chen Hsuen-shiang combining for 10 of their first 21 points to lead the Leopards 21-18 after the opening quarter and added to their advantage by a dozen in the second, highlighted by five three’s from Chen Jung-jeh, to blow it wide open.
Taiwan Mobile managed to get back on track with 31 points in the third quarter to make it a five-point game at the start of the fourth.
Photo courtesy of the Super Basketball League
That was as close as the Leopards got as the Bankers hit all 10 of their free-throw attempts in the quarter, sealing the victory as the Leopards tried to freeze the clock in the final two minutes by fouling them.
Failure to keep the Bankers off the offensive glass led to 15 offensive rebounds and several second-chance shots for the Bankers and ultimately cost the Leopards the game as they dropped to 6-13 for the season in a losing effort.
TAIWAN BEER 84, LUXGENS 74
Taiwan Beer showed off its exceptional bench depth by roughing up the Yulon Luxgens 84-74 in the early game in Kaohsiung yesterday afternoon to remain atop the standings with a 16-3 record.
Top scorer Yang Jing-min and inside threat Wu Dai-hao did not dress for the game because of injuries, but that did not stop the Brew Crew from taking an impressive 27-19 lead after one quarter of play and upping it to 50-35 by halftime, as Yang Yu-ming and Ho Sho-cheng picked up the scoring slack (17 combined points in the first half).
The Luxgens were also missing starters Chen Chih-chung and Wu Jien-long, but the result was completely different compared with Taiwan Beer as the defending champs missed the tremendous leadership of Chen Chih-chung as they fell behind early and never recovered from it.
Even though Chou Shih-yuan picked up the scoring slack by downing a team-high 14 points off the Yulon bench, it was not enough to make up for a sub-par day at the office by foreign help Jermaine Dailey (nine points and 11 rebounds, compared with his season average of 17.5 points and 20 rebounds), not to mention Chen Chih-chung and Wu’s absence.
TIGERS 76, PURE YOUTH 58
The Dacin Tigers showed no mercy against Pure Youth Construction as they humbled the second-ranked team in the league with a 76-58 blowout in the nightcap to improve their season mark to 10-9.
Tien Lei’s homecoming lived up to its hype as the Kaohsiung native poured in a team-high 24 points to make his neighbors proud.
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