Red-hot Pure Youth Construction made it three blowouts in a row by trouncing the Dacin Tigers 91-74 at the Sinjhuang Sports Complex in New Taipei City last night to improve their league-best mark to 19-6.
The win not only avenged an embarrassing 30-point defeat to the Cats in their previous meeting, but also gave the three-time defending champs a 2.5 game lead over second-placed Fubon Braves, who lost against the Yulon Luxgens in the second game.
Garret Siler had his best outing since joining the Builders three weeks ago, dominating the inside of the paint with a season-high 28 points and 10 rebounds. The big man from the US was too strong on attack for the Tigers’ Norvel Pelle, who gave up 30kg in weight to Siler.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Also starring for Pure Youth was outside threat Chen Tzu-wei, whose 20-point outing, mostly from long range, forced the Dacin defense to stretch further than skipper Hsu Chih-chao would have liked, opening up the inside of the paint for Siler to do the damage.
A pair of three’s by Chen in the opening frame set the tone early, with the Builders taking a 22-17 lead after one quarter of play. They added six to their advantage in a 24-point second quarter to grab a 46-35 lead at the half.
Neither team had the upper hand in a hard-fought third, which saw the Builders’ cushion stay at about a dozen before the Cats rolled off a 17-7 run in the first five minutes of the fourth, highlighted by three three-pointers by Yueh Ying-li to pull within three midway through the fourth.
However, that was as close as they got, with Tsai Wen-cheng and Chen combining to score seven unanswered points over a two-minute span to help Pure Youth reclaim a double-digit cushion, which they held to the end.
“[Pure Youth Construction] are a really tough team to beat down the stretch with their tremendous depth in every position,” Dacin head coach Hsu Chih-chao said after the game.
“There is nothing we can do about that,” he said.
His club were held to three points over the final five minutes of play in a game that was much more competitive than what the final score indicated.
LUXGENS 73, BRAVES 67
The Yulon Luxgens remained perfect at 2-0 for the week with a victory over the Fubon Braves in the second game, thanks to a 22-point scoring surge by Lu Cheng-rue.
The long-ball threat for the Automakers knocked down five from downtown with three in the opening quarter to give his team a surprising 24-8 lead through one quarter of play.
The Braves managed to close the gap with a sound second quarter and rallied to within three with less than two minutes to play on a clutch three by Chang Rong-hsuan.
However, it was too little, too late as the Luxgens’ Herve Lamizana and Lu combined to convert six of eight from the free-throw line to seal the deal.
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