Jien Jia-hong scored a season-high 34 pints and Hong Chih-shan chipped in 25 as Pure Youth Construction shook off some late-game jitters to beat the Yulon Luxgens 113-110 in overtime at the Taipei Municipal Gymnasium on Sunday night.
The win not only avoided what would have been an embarrassing loss with the Builders enjoying leads as large as 20 points in the first half, but also propelled them a full game ahead of the fifth-place Kinmen Liquor in the fight for the fourth and final playoff berth in the upcoming postseason.
Pure Youth shot an incredible 73 percent in the first half, which gave them a surprising 66-48 lead against the top-ranked Luxgens at the half. But the lead proved insufficient as the Luxgens switched their point of attack from the perimeter to all-star center Tseng Wen-ding inside the paint, scoring 30 points in the third to pull within four of the Builders heading into the final quarter.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Yulon went ahead 94-90 midway through the fourth on the strength of four threes by Lu Cheng-ru, only to see Tseng fouled out at the 3:12 mark.
With Tseng gone and the middle of the Luxgens defense totally exposed, the builders promptly reverted to Jien’s size advantage inside the paint by punching the ball down below to quickly close the gap.
Yulon had their best chance to seal the win when Wu Chih-wei took an uncontested seven-foot jumper in the final seconds of regulation time.
But the shot was off, breathing new signs of life back into the Builders, who scored the first four points in overtime en route to the upset win.
SUNDAY’S OTHER GAMES:
The favorites won their respective games on Sunday, with the Dacin Tigers trouncing the Taiwan Mobile Leopards 75-55 in Game 1 and Taiwan Beer skidding past Bank of Taiwan 73-67 in Game 2.
Byron Allen led the Tigers with a dozen points and 11 boards in his 10th double-double of the season, while Ho Sho-cheng championed a Brew Crew that outscored the Bankers 26-13 in the decisive third quarter to run away with the win.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS