Rallying from as many as seven down in the second half, the Dacin Tigers outplayed Kinmen Kaoliang in the fourth to force overtime and go on to defeat their foes 96-88 at the Changhua County Gymnasium yesterday afternoon for their fourth win of the season.
Lin Guan-luen’s clutch three with 18.9 seconds remaining in regulation knotted things up at 84-84 against his former team as the Cats chipped away at a seven-point, second-half deficit with some crafty passing and solid defense late on, before holding the Distillers to four points in the extra session to escape with an improbable win.
“We did not have a good second half, but thanks to [Lin] we did not give up and were able to come away with the win,” Chou Yi-hsiang said after the game.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Chou’s three-point play the old-fashioned way, coupled with a free throw in overtime, gave the Tigers a five-point lead, an advantage that they would not relinquish en route to their second straight win over Kinmen Kaoliang.
Six three-pointers by the Tigers set the tone early in the game as Dacin netted 26 in the opening frame to claim a one-point lead against Kinmen’s best, but the Distillers returned the favor in a strong second quarter by Soong Yu-hsuan, whose even dozen accounted for more than half of his team’s 20 points in the session to give Kinmen Kaoliang a 45-44 lead at halftime.
That set up an even more dominant effort by center Kyle Barone, who shot a perfect five for five from the field in a 14-point third quarter to spot his team leads as large as seven points in the second half.
The two teams then traded leads smaller than four points in a classic seesaw affair, before Lin and Chou took matters into their own hands to provide the Cats just enough offense to come away with the win.
Taiwan Beer 94, Bank of Taiwan 73
Taiwan Beer bounced back from a tough loss to Pure Youth Construction on Saturday that cost them the top spot in the standings with a convincing win over Bank of Taiwan to even their record for the weekend at 1-1.
Liu Cheng scored nine points in a game-turning third quarter that saw the Brew Crew outmaneuvered the Bankers with a 28-19 scoring deferential to blow a 37-36 halftime lead wide open in the second half in a game in which the Bankers did not know what had hit them until it was too late to close out the weekend on a down note.
Pure Youth 86, YULON Luxgens 79
Pure Youth Construction picked up their eighth straight win over the Yulon Luxgens in the third game in Changhua yesterday.
The four-time defending champions have not lost since their season-opening loss to Taiwan Beer on Nov. 28 and showed no signs of slowing down, despite allowing the Automakers to hang around in the fourth until back-to-back three-pointers by Chen Tzu-wei put it out of their reach.
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