The Yulon Luxgens bounced back from a tough loss to the Dacin Tigers on Friday with a narrow 78-77 win over arch rivals Taiwan Beer on Saturday evening at the Hsinchu Municipal Gymnasium to even their record at 6-6.
The highly anticipated showdown between the two former champions who have won five of the last six league titles lived up to its billing as it went down to the wire before the Luxgens nipped the Brew Crew in the closing seconds to win it by a single point.
Yulon successfully executed their game plan of containing Taiwan Beer forward Derek Stribling by holding the American forward’s point production to a modest 15, well short of the 25 points he made on his debut the night before.
As for Taiwan Beer, failure to convert from the free-throw line late in the game dampened what would have been a valiant comeback that saw them overcame deficits as large as a dozen points in the second half to force a 64-64 tie with under five minutes remaining.
A questionable no-call by the officials on an apparent foul attempt at the 0.6-second mark following a missed free-throw by Stribling that would have stopped the clock and given Taiwan Beer a final chance to tie the game also went in favor of the Luxgens.
Pure Youth 98, Kinmen Liquor 84
Jonathan Sanders opened the game with a 17-point first quarter on a 33-point night and James Mao chipped in 17 points as Pure Youth Constructions defeated Kinmen Liquor on Saturday afternoon to end a three-game slide.
The Builders took advantage of the in-form Sanders to stake a surprising 28-18 lead after the first quarter and kept the lead at 10 points at halftime, before letting the Distillers back in the game in the third quarter behind the stellar play of top scorer Shawn “the Hawk” Hawkins and budding star Cheng Ren-wei.
With the result on the line, Sanders and company made sure the win would be theirs as Pure Youth pulled off a rally-killing 10-0 run with three minutes left to deny Kinmen Liquor any chance of a comeback.
The Hawk would tie Sanders with a game-high 33 points, but it was not nearly enough for the win as the Distillers opened the New Year with a loss.
Leopards 85, Bank of Taiwan 72
Carrying their previous momentum into the first game after the New Year break, the Taiwan Mobile Leopards won their fourth straight game by trouncing Bank of Taiwan on Saturday.
The Bankers managed to hang with the Leopards for a half, trailing by a point at halftime, but that was as close as they got, the Leopards outscoring their opponents 26-17 in the third quarter and gradually pulling away in the fourth to win it by 13 points.
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