Tseng Wen-ding’s tie-breaking slam and key blocked shot with under a minute remaining lifted Taiwan Team A past Iran 80-76 in Jones Cup play at the Taipei County Sinjhuang Gymnasium on Saturday night.
The Yulon Luxgen center — who was hampered by injuries throughout the season — turned in one of his best efforts of the year by scoring a team-high 23 points, three blocked shots and three rebounds to show why he is still the premier big man in the Super Basketball League.
With Iran’s starting center Hamed Ehadadi sidelined with stomach problems, the heavily favored defending champs of the 2007 Asian Championship suddenly looked beatable as the hosts attacked the Iranian low-post with stellar play by Tseng and fellow center Wu Dai-hao of Taiwan Beer, with the pair netting a combined 33 points and 10 boards.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
An evenly fought first half that ended appropriately in a 38-all deadlock got the crowd into the game. Even though Taiwan opened the second half on a down note — allowing a 10-2 scoring run for Iran — they answered with a 15-4 run of their own to grab a 55-52 lead.
The seesaw battle continued with neither team able to take leads larger than five down the stretch until the tie at 76 set the stage for Tseng’s last-minute heroics.
With the win, Taiwan Team A improved to 5-2 for the tournament. Another win over arch-rival South Korea in the final game coupled with rather unlikely losses by Jordan and Iran in their final games could give the home team a grand finish as high as second place.
Ademola Lookman on Thursday scored on his Atletico Madrid debut in a 5-0 rout of Real Betis Balompie that sent Diego Simeone’s team to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey. David Hancko, Giuliano Simeone, Antoine Griezmann and Thiago Almada also scored for Atletico as they advanced to the last four for the third straight season. Atletico are trying to reach their first Copa final since winning the competition in 2012-2013. Hancko opened the scoring for the visitors in the 12th minute and Giuliano Simeone added to the lead in the 30th, before Lookman got his first goal for Atletico on a fast
GUNNING FOR A WIN: The victory sending Arsenal to the final for the first time in six years was cathartic for a team who had lost their previous four semi-finals Arsenal on Tuesday reached the League Cup final for the first time in eight years as Kai Havertz sealed a 1-0 win against Chelsea in the semi-final second leg. Mikel Arteta’s side had put themselves in pole position in the first leg and Havertz came off the bench to finish the 4-2 aggregate victory in the closing moments at the Emirates Stadium. It was a cathartic triumph for the Gunners, who had lost their previous four semi-finals in last year’s UEFA Champions League and League Cup, the 2022 League Cup and the 2021 UEFA Europa League. In their first final for six years,
SUPERSTAR DELIVERS: Victor Wembanyama scored 29 points and pulled down 11 rebounds to propel the Spurs to a 135-123 victory over the Dallas Mavericks The Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday shook off the early exit of injured star Luka Doncic, rallying without him in the second half for a 119-115 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. Austin Reaves, again coming off the bench in his second game back from a 19-game injury absence, scored 13 of his 35 points in the fourth quarter, drilling a pair of back-to-back three-pointers to give the Lakers their first lead of the game early in the final frame. “Losing Luka, you know nothing’s going to be easy after that because he does so much for us, but we bonded together,” said
France head coach Fabien Galthie on Thursday lauded his team’s attacking performance after their dazzling 36-14 victory over Ireland in their Six Nations opener. A brace of tries from Louis Bielley-Biarrey and one from mercurial flyhalf Matthieu Jalibert helped France storm into a 29-0 lead before taking their foot off the gas and allowing Ireland back into the match, before winger Theo Attissogbe put some gloss on the victory late on. “In an attacking sense, with the ball, the team played with great accuracy,” Galthie said. “It was one of the most accurate attacking performances in a long time, despite the weather
RSS