Pure Youth Construction made it two in a row over the first weekend of play in the Super Basketball League by holding off a late-game rally by Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor to prevail 72-69 in Sinjhuang last night.
Chang Yu-lin and Rashad Jones-Jennings netted a team-high 18 points apiece to account for half of the Builders’ offense as they took a 52-44 lead through three quarters and held their ground in the fourth.
Kinmen’s Liang Chih-chao had a big night, downing a game-high 27 points for his new team, 16 of which came during the decisive fourth, but it was not enough to help skipper Luo Tien-jin pull off a win in their season-opener as they fell three short in a disheartening loss.
Photo: CNA
Jones-Jennings bounced back from a scoreless effort on his Taiwan debut on Saturday night by scoring 10 of the Builders’ 20 points in the fourth quarter, along with 22 stunning rebounds to prove his worth.
Pure Youth trailed the Distillers 21-22 after the first quarter, but quickly came back in the second to lead by as many as five, before closing out the first half on top 34-33.
They picked up where they left off in the third by upping their lead to eight behind the strong play of Chang.
That proved to be sufficient as they held off Liang’s 16-point fourth to keep the win intact.
Taiwan Beer 74, Bank of Taiwan 51
Taiwan Beer opened the game by holding Bank of Taiwan to a meager six points in a 22-6 first quarter and never looked back, topping the Bankers by 23 points yesterday afternoon to start the new season with a solid win.
The Bankers tied a league low in first-half scoring by netting only 18, digging themselves a hole too deep to overcome, even after an evenly-fought second half.
“They simply outplayed us in every aspect of the game,” Bank of Taiwan head coach Lai Liang-chung said after the contest in which his troops never recovered from their dismal first half performance.
The commanding 39-18 lead that Taiwan Beer managed to achieve allowed skipper Yen Jia-hua to substitute freely in the second half as all 12 of his players got at least 11 minutes of floor time en route to the 23-point slaughter.
Newly arrived forward Cheng “QQ” Ren-wei made Yen’s decision to acquire his services look a brilliant one as the former Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor standout led all scorers with eight at the half to treat the Taiwan Beer fans on hand to a pleasant surprise.
Luxgens 74, Leopards 70
A pair of free throws by Tseng Wen-ding gave the Yulon Luxgens a 72-70 lead with fewer than 45 seconds remaining in the game as the defending champions held off a tenacious Taiwan Leopards to grab the win in the weekend finale yesterday evening in Sinjhuang.
It was a second straight victory for the Luxgens in as many days as they keep pace with the undefeated Builders on the 2-0 mark.
Marcus Dove had a chance to tie the game for the Leopards with 23 seconds left, but the American center failed to convert an eight-footer off the glass, forcing his team to foul in the interests of preserving time. That did not help much as the Luxgens calmly sank two big free throws in the closing seconds to seal the victory.
A dozen points from Su Hsiang-yi in a 21-point second quarter helped the Leopards turned a four-point deficit into a 35-29 lead at halftime, but the Luxgens were able to erase the deficit, tying the game at 49-49 through three quarters, before skidding ahead for the win.
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