Overcoming a 10-point deficit at the half, the Yulon Luxgens erupted for nearly 50 points over the final 20 minutes to beat the Dacin Tigers 82-77 at the Sinjhuang Sports Complex in New Taipei City yesterday afternoon.
New signing Herve Lamizana, who has played professionally in North America, Europe and Asia, came off a dismal first half for the Luxgens with a brilliant second period. The Ivorian scored 11 points in the third quarter, and 22 in total, to lead the underdogs to victory.
“It’s been over six months since I played in an organized game, so I was a little rusty in the beginning,” Lamizana said after the game.
Also starring for the Luxgens were forwards Wu Fong-cheng and Lu Cheng-rue, who netted 20 and 19 points respectively to help their team bounce back from a pair of losses.
Dacin rode the red-hot shooting of three-point threats Chen Tzu-wei and Yueh Ying-li, who connected for six combined three’s against Yulon’s zone defense in the first half, but failed to sustain the success against the man-to-man defense subsequently employed by Yulon.
They were only able to convert 3-for-15 from behind the three-point line to lose the game by five in the end.
Pure Youth 84, Leopards 60
Top-ranked Pure Youth Construction embarrassed the Taiwan Mobile Cloud Leopards 84-60 in the second game in Sinjhuang yesterday.
The Builders led by as many as 36 points after holding the Leopards to a season-low 19 points in the first half before playing their reserves for more than a quarter in the second half.
Failure to achieve good ball flow cost the Leopards the game as they deviated from their usual pass-intensive offensive play by going solo on most of their offensive sets, which netted them only nine assists in the game.
The victory widened the Builders’ lead over the second-placed Leopards to a season-high four games, with the two clubs seemingly heading in opposite directions, with the Tigers and Luxgens lurking not far behind.
Bank of Taiwan 85, Taiwan Beer 68
Taiwan Beer proved no match for Bank of Taiwan in the final game in Sinjhuang last night.
A bad evening for the Brew Crew was made worse after forward Liu Chan suffered a season-ending dislocated left elbow after falling awkwardly during the third quarter.
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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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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