Bank of Taiwan pulled off a major upset in the Year of the Monkey by stunning second-place d Taiwan Beer in an 80-74 final at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City last night to force a tie for the fifth-place spot in the standings.
Lee Wei-che and Chen Li-huan made the most of their opportunities to start by downing four points each in the final three minutes of the game to lead the Bankers past a resilient Brew Crew.
The Beermen had rallied from as many as 15 points down in the third quarter to tie the game in the fourth before faltering late in the contest to drop what many had thought to be an easy win for the men in green.
The classic battle between David and Goliath caught many by surprise, as the Bankers opened the match with Chen Kuo-wei and Luke Nevill combining for 15 of their team’s 22 points to lead Taiwan Beer by three after the first quarter.
The Bankers took their game out to the perimeters in the second quarter, with five three-pointers from behind the arc, outscoring Taiwan Beer 24-22 for an unexpected 46-41 advantage at halftime.
Bank of Taiwan managed to up their lead to as much as 15 in the third, with Chang Po-sheng and Chen Hsuan-hsiang netting four each before the Brew Crew went on an 8-2 run of their own to keep the deficit to less than 10 by the end of the period.
That was when the Brew Crew decided to shift into another gear, with Liu Cheng and Lu Chi-min championing a rally that tied the game up with about four minutes left on the clock.
That set up Lee and Chen Li-huan’s late-game heroics as the Bankers held on for the victory.
TIGERS 96, LUXGENS 90
The Dacin Tigers snapped a three-game losing streak against the Yulon Luxgens by edging past the Automakers in a 96-90 final in the second game in New Taipei City last night to close out the weekend on a high note.
Lin Guan-luen scored 19 points in the second half and Bryan Davis got 17 as the Dacin scoring pair teamed up for 36 of their club’s 50 points in the second half, denying the Automakers what would have been a valiant comeback.
A 9-0 run by the Tigers late in the second quarter gave the Cats a 46-41 cushion at halftime in a game that went back and forth between the two squads.
Dacin added another nine to their lead with Lin orchestrating an 8-0 run midway through the third quarter to seemingly put the game out of the Automakers’ reach.
However, the diehard Luxgens were able to answer with an 11-2 run at the start of the fourth quarter to pull within two, with Liam McMorrow getting back-to-back three-pointers.
Their hopes of a victory were shortlived though, with Lin nailing a pair of long balls from downtown and four straight free-throws down the stretch to keep the Luxgens from turning the tide late in the game.
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