The Yulon Dinos claimed three victories in a row for a perfect week of play in Taiwan's professional league last week, beating the ETTV Antelopes, Bank of Taiwan and Taiwan Beer over a grueling three-day stretch.
It took a valiant fourth-quarter rally from the defending champions to turn back a tough Antelopes squad that actually held a seven-point lead with under eight minutes to play in Friday's game at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium, before the Dinos picked up back-to-back wins against the bankers (96-61) and the beermen (70-57) over the weekend.
Twenty-six first-quarter points helped set the tone for the Dinos in Saturday's blowout win over the bankers, as reserve guard Chang Yi-wen turned in a career night with 28 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SBL
The Dinos attack scored at will against a disorganized bankers' defense that yielded numerous uncontested lay-ups.
The 35-point margin of victory by the Dinos was the largest of the season so far.
Dinos 70, Taiwan Beer 57
A dominant second half by the Dinos turned a six-point, halftime deficit (30-24) into an eventual 13-point win (70-57) over the brew crew to cap off the perfect weekend for the defending champs.
Neither club was able to play its usual style of basketball in the early going in front of a sold-out crowd, resulting in a mistake-filled, low-scoring first half for both teams.
Then the Dinos attack erupted for 26 points in the third quarter that included five three-pointers from Chen Chih-chung and Chou Shih-yuan combined.
Chen ended with 15 points in the second half en route to a game-high 17-point night, while Chou added 14.
Reserve forward Wu Chih-yuan led all brewers with 15 points, many of which came after offensive rebounds.
Taiwan Beer's usual scoring leader, Lin "The Beast" Chih-jeh, was unable to evade Chen's blanket-like coverage, ending the game with only 11 points, fewer than half of his league-leading average of 25.5 prior to the game.
YMY 96, Bank of Taiwan 85
Like the Dinos, YMY also played three contests in as many days last week. But unlike the Dinos, they were only able to come away with a 1-2 result.
After starting off the weekend on a high note with a 96-85 win over the bankers on Friday, YMY quickly found itself on the losing end again when the brew crew crashed their party with a 94-79 decision on Saturday.
Six different brewers had double-digit point production for the night, highlighted by Lin Chih-jeh's double-double -- 28 points and 10 rebounds.
Wu Chih-yuan came up with 15 points and 13 rebounds for his first double-double of the year.
The beermen absolutely owned YMY in the rebounding with a 45-31 advantage.
Tigers 86, YMY 81
YMY came close to pulling off an upset win over the Dacin Tigers on Sunday when it played the big cats tough for three quarters before eventually falling short by five in an 86-81 final.
Luo "The Natural" Hsin-liang played all 40 minutes of the game, ringing up 38 points.
The soon-to-be 35-year-old guard for YMY had a chance to bring his club to within a point of the Tigers on three free throw attempts in the final minute of the game, after being down by as many as 16 in the third quarter. However, he only managed to convert one of the three free throws, leaving YMY three points shy in the eventual loss.
Tigers 90, Hunters 75
The Dinos were not the lone team to have a perfect week as the Tigers, extending their winning streak to four games.
Tien Lei finally broke out of a three-game slump by scoring 31 points in his best offensive outing of the season.
The league's most valuable player over the past two seasons was joined by backcourt tandem Cheng Chang-jun (16 points) and Su Yi-jeh (11 points), and forward Wu Yi-hui (17 points).
With the Tigers switching their defense often to disrupt the Hunters' attack, Videoland never felt comfortable running their normal half-court offense.
Most of the Hunters' scoring had come from the low post plays by forwards Lee Chi-yi and Lin Hsin-hua, often leaving their other big gun, Yang Tseh-yi, out of the offensive scheme.
"Add on the difference between Yang's usual point production [19] and what he got tonight [8] and we have a totally different ball game," Hunters coach Chou Hai-rong said.
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