Avenging a one-point loss to the ETTV Antelopes earlier this month with a strong fourth-quarter surge, Taiwan Beer ran away with an 89-78 victory at the Taipei Physical Education College Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon to close out the first half of the season with a bang before the Lunar New Year break.
It was the 88-87 win by the Antelopes over the Beer crew on Feb. 4 that kept intact a five-game winning streak for the Antelopes, thanks to a free throw by forward Wu Jia-long in the game's closing seconds.
On Sunday, there would be no last-second hero because Taiwan Beer made sure the game did not go down to the wire.
After a fast start by the Antelopes that gave them an early 18-16 lead by the end of the first quarter, Taiwan Beer answered with a 26-20 second-quarter to lead by four at the half (42-38).
Taiwan Beer top scorer Lin "the Beast" Chih-jeh shook off a sub-par first half in which he managed only two points with seven in the third against a tough Antelopes counter-attack to keep his team's lead at one point (63-62) heading into the final quarter, setting the stage for their offensive surge to secure the victory.
"We weren't about to make the same mistake twice," Taiwan Beer skipper Yen Jia-hua said after the game, referring to his team's late-game collapse that allowed the Antelopes to beat his club by a point on Feb 4.
Four different players managed double-digit scores for Taiwan Beer with Luo Hsin-liang leading the way with 18 points to offset the Beast's rare off night (12 points in the game compared to his season average of 20.9 prior to Sunday's game).
Fellow forward Ho Sho-cheng also chipped in 16 to help his team win its ninth game for the sole possession of the second-place spot in the latest standings.
As for the Antelopes, forward Delvin Thomas' season-high, 22-point night proved a tad short as they dropped two of the last three after winning five in a row over a two-week span to climb away from the bottom of the standings.
Bank of Taiwan 83, Eagles 61
Bank of Taiwan put struggling Azio Eagles in their place with an 83-61 rout on Sunday, grounding the young squad that had pulled off the upset of the season by beating the previously second-ranked Videoland Hunters in a 66-60 shocker on Saturday evening for their first win of the year.
Diminutive forward Chen Hsuen-shiang turned in his best game of the year by far with a game-high, 25-point effort to lead a Bankers' attack that had lost six in a row.
The Bankers took a 24-15 lead after the first quarter on the strength of 15 combined points by Chen and fellow forward Yang Jing-min and never looked back.
By half-time they lead by a comfortable 15 points that allowed head coach Wei Chen-ming to put on his reserve players.
Chang Yu-lin was nowhere near as effective as he had been on Saturday, scoring only four points, compared to the 22 that corralled his team to prevail against the Hunters.
"We needed this one like you wouldn't believe," Wei said after the game. "This win puts us all in a better mood for the New Year," Wei said.
Dinos 84, Tigers 72
Like Taiwan Beer, the Yulon Dinos also avenged an earlier loss on Sunday with an 84-72 win over the Dacin Tigers to claim the best record in the league (10-3).
The Tigers grabbed the Dinos by the tail in an overwhelming 83-70 win on Feb. 4 that halted the Dinos' impressive eight-game winning streak at the time. And that was more than adequate to trigger an all-out attack by the defending champs as they poured in 25 first-quarter points to lead by ten before really piling it on for a commanding 18-point lead by the fourth quarter.
The final score of 84-72 was no indication of the Dinos' complete dominance in the game as the Tigers went on an 11-0 run in the game's final minutes to spare their blushes.
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