Holding Pure Youth Construction to just eight points in the third quarter, Taiwan Beer rallied from a five-point, first-half deficit with a superior second half, stifling the Builders with a final score of 81-72 at the Kaohsiung Feng Shan Gymnasium last night to take Game 2 of the championship finals.
The victory not only cooled off the Builders, who seemed well on their way to win the game with a solid first half, but more importantly evened the best-of-seven series at one apiece as another loss by the Brew Crew would have put them in a hole.
Liu Cheng broke out of a scoreless slump in the first half with 16 points in the second half, 10 of which came during the decisive fourth quarter to corral his club past the four-time defending champions.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
“I just tried not to let [his scoreless first half] bother me and kept shooting the ball if the shots were there,” Liu said after the game.
His timely surge could be trouble for Pure Youth now that the series is essentially a best-of-five.
Sloppy ball-handling plagued both squads in a low-scoring first quarter that saw the teams commit 10 combined turnovers. The Builders held a 13-12 lead at the first break.
The first-quarter blues soon went away as the Builders buckled down and converted 11 of 17 from the field, including four three-pointers in a 26-point scoring spree, increasing their lead to 39-34 at the half.
A 5-0 run by Taiwan Beer in the opening two minutes of the third quarter swung the momentum in favor of the Brew Crew, with Liu and Patrick O’Bryant combining for 10 of his team’s 16 to turn a five-point deficit into a three-point lead after the quarter.
The Builders closed the gap, with Lin Chin-bang connecting from the perimeter, turning the contest into a seesaw battle that featured three lead changes in a three-minute span.
That set up a tough, off-balance shot by Chiang Yu-an and a buzzer-beating three by Yu Huan-ya in a 5-0 run with less than four minutes to play to put Taiwan Beer ahead for good.
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