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.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS