Postseason play in the Super Basketball League opens tonight with the top-seeded Yulon Dinos taking on the fourth-seeded Bank of Taiwan and the No. 2 seeded Taiwan Beer doing battle with the third-seeded Dacin Tigers at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium.
The winners from the best-of-five, first-round action will then meet in a best-of-seven championship series for this year's title.
Riding the momentum of an eight-game winning streak into the postseason, defending champs the Dinos are clearly the favorites this time around with all-star center Tseng Wen-ding leading the way, backed by veteran point guard Chen Chih-chung and speedy defensive specialist Chou Shih-yuan doing the dirty work on defense.
The bankers, in their first ever postseason appearance, will try to steal a game from the Dinos in what could be a three-game sweep as they look to give the Dinos their money's worth.
The matchup between the beermen and the Tigers should be an interesting one since both clubs are known to jack up the score in a hurry with an explosive offense heading by Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh of Taiwan Beer and Dacin's very own scoring machine Tien Lei.
This is a series that could go all the way to the fifth game before the winner is determined as the most evenly matched squads in the league go head-to-head for the sixth time this year, with the beer crew holding a 3-2 advantage in the five regular season games played.
Even though the Beast is still being listed as "day-to-day," nursing an ankle injury that he sustained during their regular season finale against YMY last weekend, his absence in the early going of the series may not necessarily be bad for Taiwan Beer, as it would most definitely force the beer crew to spread the ball around more evenly.
Player of the Month
Bank of Taiwan point guard Jien Ming-fu was named the Player of the Month in a combined voting for the months of March and April earlier this week, as the speedy workhorse for the bankers averaged 23.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.6 steals during the five games played in March and April.
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