The favorites needed a strong fourth-quarter rally to win their respective games in the Super Basketball League on Friday night with Taiwan Beer topping the Bank of Taiwan 81-73 and the Yulon Dinos edging past Pure Youth Construction by a 72-67 margin at the Taipei County Sports Complex.
The expected easy victory for Taiwan Beer never materialized as the Bankers put up a big fight against the defending champions with solid efforts from emerging star Hsu Chih-chiang and newly signed forward Lin Tsung-ching to trail Taiwan Beer by one after the first quarter (16-17) before heading into halftime down 33-36.
Several sloppy plays by the Bankers led to a 7-2 Taiwan Beer run and forced skipper Lai Liang-chung to call a timeout. The Bankers finally regained their form with a 17-0 run of their own to close out the third quarter with a surprising 54-47 lead.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Just when things looked bleak for Taiwan Beer, shooters Ho Sho-cheng and Chen Shih-nian decided to take matters into their own hands by connecting for 13 points apiece to salvage their club from what would have been an embarrassing loss to the winless Bank of Taiwan.
"We know what they [Bank of Taiwan] are capable of doing as they nearly beat Dacin last week, so I just told our guys there is no such thing as a sure win," Taiwan Beer head coach Yen Jia-hua said after the game, referring to the Bankers' near-upset of the Dacin Tigers last week where they had led by as many as 23 in the second half before succumbing to the Tigers in a dramatic overtime loss.
Taiwan Beer were outhustled by the Bankers who outrebounded their opponents by a 45-34 margin.
Five different Bankers scored in double-digits on the night, compared to Taiwan Beer's two. But the two Taiwan Beer players, Ho and Chen, accounted for 49 of their team's 81 points.
Dinos 72, Pure Youth 67
For the second straight game, Pure Youth hanged tough for three decent quarters against worthy opponents before faltering in the final minutes to lose by a handful.
Even though the Builders did not lose a commanding 20-plus point lead on Friday like they had did against the heavily-favored Tigers last week, their trend of playing a dismal fourth quarter continued as they lost to the undefeated Dinos by a 72-67 final margin to remain winless at 0-3 so far.
After trailing the Dinos by a deuce (13-15) in the opening quarter, Pure Youth resorted to forward James Mao's perimeter game to keep the deficit at a respectable seven (30-37) by the end the half. If it had not been for the Dinos forward Lu Cheng-rue's last-second three-pointer prior to the break, Pure Youth's deficit would have been even less.
The Dinos opened the second half with 7-2 run to widen the margin to a dozen, only to trigger a 10-0 run by Pure Youth later in the third that slashed the lead to six heading into the fourth.
Pure Youth managed to play the Dinos evenly in the early part of the last period, but fell victim to a Dinos transition game that featured newcomer Yang Tseh-yi making several fast-break finishes.
Three different Yulon players netted ten or more points on the night, led by Chen "Airman" Hsin-an's 12, while Pure Youth's Mao scored a game-high 18.
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