Double-double outings from Alexus Foyle and Tien Lei, the former with 25 points and 10 rebounds, while the latter had 17 points with 10 rebounds, propelled the Dacin Tigers past the top-ranked Taiwan Beer 76-62 at the Sinjhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City last night.
The win not only nipped a three-game losing skid against the Brew Crew for the Tigers, but more importantly upped their lead over fourth-placed Yulon Luxgens by a half-game in the standings with the end of the regular season quickly approaching.
“We really needed this win to put some distance between us and Yulon,” Dacin skipper Chiou Da-tsung said after the game.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
His team needs at least three more wins to secure the No. 3 spot in the regular season so that they can avoid taking on top-ranked Taiwan Beer in the first round of playoffs.
Having already won the regular season title with an outstanding 21-5 mark and thus securing the top-seed berth in the upcoming postseason, Taiwan Beer approached the game with the aim to play its reserves in the interest of tuning up for the playoffs, which is why regular starters Wu Dai-hao and Yang Jing-min did not even dress for the game.
However, that did not keep the Brew Crew from putting up a good fight as they trailed the Cats by a single point after a quarter of play and hung in for most of the second quarter to make it a four-point game (33-29) at the half.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
It took a great effort from Chang Chih-fong and Foyle toward the end of the third quarter to spark an 11-2 run that put the Cats up by eleven by the end of the quarter.
Even though the Beer Crew answered with a 10-2 run of their own to close within four, that was as close as they got as the Tigers strung together a late-game run to seal the win.
Chiou will have three more games to figure out which dozen of his 18 players will make it into the playoffs with the postseason roster limited to 12 players per team.
PURE YOUTH 78, LEOPARDS 74
Overcoming a double-digit deficits in the second half, Pure Youth Construction surprised the Taiwan Mobile Leopards with a 78-74 victory in the late game at the Sinjhuang Gymnasium last night.
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