Patrick O’Bryant scored a season-high 38 points and Lu Chi-min added another 11, five of which came in overtime, as Taiwan Beer shook off the feisty Dacin Tigers to escape with a 94-85 victory at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City last night to remain unbeaten with a 5-0 record.
Taking advantage of a Tigers crew missing the services of hired gun Marcus Douthit to injury, O’Bryant made his presence felt inside the paint with 28 rebounds on the night to dampen an otherwise solid effort by the Cats, who nearly pulled off an upset by playing the Brew Crew tough in regulation.
“We were not as aggressive on defense as we could have been, that’s what made the game closer than we had anticipated,” Lu said after the game.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
He managed to save his best for last by taking the ball strong to the hoop in the closing minutes to seal the win.
What should have been an easy victory for the league leaders turned into a dogfight with the Cats knocking down three three-pointers in a 24-point second quarter to grab a surprising 38-37 lead at the half after a slow start by both clubs.
However, Taiwan Beer then opened the second half with an 11-4 run to take a six-point lead and they extended that margin to as wide as a dozen in the third quarter, before back-to-back three-pointers by Lin Guan-luen kept it a six-point game after three quarters of play.
The momentum then shifted in favor of the Tigers, with Taiwan Beer committing several unforced turnovers to allow the underdogs to eventually tie the game at 71-71 with less than four minutes to play in regulation.
The Brew Crew had an excellent opportunity to put the game away with O’Bryant on the free-throw line and his team leading by three with approximately a minute remaining, but the American big man missed both attempts to set up a game-tying three-pointer by Huang Cheng with 3.2 seconds left on the clock to send the contest into overtime.
That was as close as the Tigers got, though, as Taiwan Beer began the extra session with a 5-0 run and never looked back en route to a nine-point win.
Luxgens 69, Kinmen Kaoliang 63
In the second game in Banciao last night, the Yulon Luxgens bounced back from a tough loss to Bank of Taiwan on Thursday with a 69-63 win over Kinmen Kaoliang to pick up their second victory of the season.
Chou Shih-yuan and Hu Kai-hsiang took turns at corralling the Automakers in the second and third quarters with 13 and 10 points respectively, overcoming a slow start in the first quarter that saw Kinmen Kaoliang lead 19-13.
Trailing by as many as 11 in the third quarter, the Distillers pulled off a 10-2 run to get to within three points midway through the fourth, but that was as close as they got as the Luxgens answered with a 6-0 run of their own to run away with it.
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