Failure to contain Philippine center Marcus Douthit, coupled with several ill-advised turnovers late in the contest, cost Taiwan the game as they dropped a 75-68 decision to the Philippines at the Ota Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday afternoon in the quarter-finals of the fourth FIBA Asia Cup Basketball Tournament.
The American-born big man out of Syracuse, New York, who was naturalized last year, tore up Taiwan’s interior defense by attaining a double-double (13 points and 11 rebounds) in the first half alone on a 19-point and 18-rebound night, to help his team take a 38-32 lead at the half.
Even though Taiwan would look to Doug Creighton’s game-high six three-pointers to keep the deficit under 10 points prior to the fourth quarter, their neighbors to the south managed to pull off a 9-0 run to start the fourth and led by as many as 14 to seal the deal long before the final buzzer.
“We just failed to execute when it counted the most,” Taiwan skipper Hsu Chin-che said after the game.
His troops rallied from 14 points down to within five points in the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run of their own that forced the Philippines to call a timeout.
However, Chang Tsung-hsien coughed up the ball twice on back-to-back possessions late in the game to kill whatever momentum Taiwan had at that point, denying Taiwan a chance at what would have been an unbelievable comeback effort.
In other Asia Cup 2012 games:
‧ Japan 60, China 50
‧ Qatar 79, Lebanon 72
‧ Iran 79, Uzbekistan 37
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