Red-hot Taiwan Beer continued their late-season surge by downing Bank of Taiwan 69-63 at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City last night to keep their regular-season title hopes alive.
The win also upped the Brew Crew’s winning streak to four in a row as they look to close out the regular season in grand fashion and make a run for the title.
Liu Cheng and Chiang Yu-an split the time playing the lead role in the Taiwan Beer offense, with the former pouring in 17 in the first half on a 23-point night and the latter following suit with a 10-point second half to hand the Financial Wizards their sixth consecutive defeat.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“The key to our victory was great defense, especially in the second half,” Chiang said.
The speedy Taiwan Beer guard, who has slowly emerged as one of the league’s premier point man, took the Bankers defense to school by slashing through the paint with several nifty drives to the hoop, leaving the Bankers’ defenders looking helplessly in his rearview mirror.
Six quick points by Chang Jung-hsuan helped the Brew Crew claim a 17-14 lead after one quarter of play, before Liu exploded for an even dozen in the second to put his team ahead 37-30 at halftime.
The Bankers managed to pull within five of Taiwan Beer with Luke Nevill scoring seven of his team’s first nine points in the third quarter, but that was as close as they got as Chiang showed off his tremendous speed by taking the ball strong to the hoop on several occasions to deny the Bankers any chance of a comeback.
Four of Taiwan Beer’s starters scored in double-digits with Liu leading the pack, while Nevill’s game-high 26 points was the lone highlight for the Bankers, who are experiencing a late-season slump which has seen them fall to sixth in the standings.
Pure Youth 86, Tigers 66
League-leading Pure Youth Construction tamed the Dacin Tigers by a 20-point margin in the second game in New Taipei City last night to close out the weekend with a perfect 2-0 record.
The four-time defending champions came out firing by outscoring the Cats 21-11 in the first quarter and they never looked back.
The double-digit advantage served Ben Metcalf and his troops well as the coach was able to rest his starters much more than he had anticipated, while giving his reserves some much-needed floor time.
“Coach wanted us to be as aggressive as possible and not worry about anything else, which is what we did,” Wu Hung-hsin said.
The Pure Youth reserve center made the most of his nearly 20 minutes of floor time by scoring 14 points to tie his season-high mark.
A failure to get Bryan Davis and Chou Yi-hsiang involved on the offense hurt the Tigers in the second half as the Dacin scoring tandem only managed to combine for a season-low 16 points on the night as the Cats lost this one long before the final buzzer.
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