The 2006 Super Basketball League (SBL) season came to a consummate end with the annual awards ceremony at the Taipei Grand Hyatt on Monday afternoon.
Crowd favorite and media darling Tien Lei added to his already astonishing list of hardware with a third straight season Most Valuable Player (MVP) honor on top of the scoring title, rebounding crown (also for the third straight year) and being named to the All-SBL Team.
The third-year "Mr Everything" for the Dacin Tigers beat out Taiwan Beer great Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh by a narrow five-point margin (92-87) to take home the coveted MVP award with an impressive regular-season average of 27.1 points and 11.6 rebounds per contest to account for nearly a third of his team's total offensive production.
PHOTO: AP
Along with the trophies that Tien could not hold up all at once was a hefty sum of NT$60,000 in prize money (NT$30,000 for the MVP award, and NT$10,000 each for the three other awards that he won) for his outstanding achievements in the season.
"I would like to thank all my teammates for their support, I could not have done it without them," Tien said.
"I would say that the MVP is what I covet the most while the scoring title is what I believe is the hardest to come by," Tien added, referring to the tough competition between him and the Beast, the defending scoring champ for the past two seasons.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SBL
Joining Tien as the other big winner of the day was Yulon Dinos center Tseng Wen-ding, whose championship series MVP selection was just icing on the cake in a season that the 2.05m-tall giant racked up the Defensive Player of the Year honor, the blocked-shot title, and being named to the ALL-SBL Team.
It was Tseng's dominance inside the paint, either by ways of blocking or altering the opponents' shots that made the Dinos almost impossible to beat.
Rounding out this season's ALL-SBL Team were the Beast, Bank of Taiwan's speedy point man Jien Ming-fu, and YMY veteran guard Luo "the Natural" Hsin-liang.
Jien led the league in steals with 2.07 per game, topping out perennial winner Chou Shih-yuan of the Dinos by a .03 average. The always-energetic backcourt icon for the bankers did not let his small stature (standing just 1.63m tall) mask the exceptional basketball mind and an instinct for the ball that he surely possessed, as he worked his way off the bankers' bench to become one of the premier point guards in the league.
This year's Top Assists honor went to the bankers' Wu Yong-ren, whose 5.0 assists per game was one better than last year's winner Chen Hui's 4.0. Wu and Jien's invaluable contribution was the main reason that bankers made it into the playoffs for the first time in club history.
Two other members from the Bank of Taiwan also received well-deserved recognition for their remarkable effort in turning a group of no-namers into a top-tier squad: Lin "the Killer Bee" Chuin-fong for a solid all-around year that earned him the Most Improved Player of the Year and Coach of the Year winner Wei Chen-ming for his tremendous leadership and guidance that won the hearts of countless fans around the nation.
Last but not least was the Rookie of the Year award, that went to Su Yi-jeh of the Dacin Tigers by a unanimous choice. The young budding star out of the Qiang Shu High School showed no sign of his novel status by calmly sinking numerous clutch shots for the big cats throughout the year like a seasoned veteran would.
NBA
AP,Cleveland, Ohio
Here's the latest playoff guarantee: The Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers will play a Game 6. And, who knows? Maybe even a 7.
Rasheed Wallace's defiant prediction of a Detroit victory backfired when LeBron James scored 22 points and the Cavaliers beat the Pistons 74-72 to even the second-round series at 2-2 on Monday night.
Following Detroit's loss in Game 3, Wallace had pledged the Pistons would not only win Game 4, but that the Cavaliers would be playing in front of their fans for the last time this season. Well, Cleveland has at least one more at home after winning its second straight over the favored Eastern Conference champs.
With Wallace watching from the bench because of a sprained ankle, James made two free throws -- the last with 1.3 seconds left -- and the Pistons threw away their final inbounds pass to James, who grabbed the ball and punted it into the second deck.
Quicken Loans Arena was electrified from start to finish, and Wallace's boast had a lot to with that. Detroit's mouthy forward was booed every time he touched the ball.
James added nine assists and eight rebounds, narrowly missing his third triple-double of the postseason. Eric Snow had 12 points -- 10 after halftime -- and Anderson Varejao had 10 points and drew a key foul late in the game.
Richard Hamilton scored 30 points and Tayshaun Prince had 16 for the Pistons, who suddenly find themselves in a tense series after dominating at home in Games 1 and 2. The series now shifts to The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, for Game 5 today.
Mavericks 123, Spurs 118
The way the Dallas Mavericks are going, every team is going to start using two point guards.
New starter Devin Harris and backcourt incumbent Jason Terry hit big shots in a fourth-quarter rally, then showed off their speed and shooting in overtime, sending the Mavericks into a 3-1 lead in their second-round series.
Dallas has won three in a row since Harris joined the starting lineup. Now the Mavs are one win from making the conference finals for the second time in four years and the third time in franchise history.
The Spurs shook up their lineup for a second straight game, but it wasn't enough. Despite an early surge, the Mavs caught up by halftime and persevered down the stretch of another terrific game in a series that's living up to expectations that have been building since December.
The reigning champions go into Game 5 tonight in a heap of trouble. Since 1997, the Spurs are 0-5 when trailing this deep into a playoff series. They also haven't won an elimination game to keep a series going; the only time they won when facing elimination was Game 7 of last year's finals.
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