The Dacin Tigers yesterday defeated Pauian Archiland 75-63 at New Taipei City’s Banciao Stadium to advance to this year’s Super Basketball League finals, wrapping up the second-round playoff series four games to one.
The trip to the finals will be the Tigers’ league-record eighth, one more than Taiwan Beer.
Tigers’ starters led a fast-break attack to build up a 20-8 lead in the first quarter, but Pauian Archiland tried to extend the series another day by fighting back to within two points, trimming Dacin’s lead to 35-33 at halftime.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The Tigers picked up 19 points in the third and added another 21 in the final quarter to close out the best-of-seven series with their fourth win in five games.
Big center Sim Bhullar, nicknamed “Great Wall of India,” last night again proved pivotal in the triumph, justifying a regular-season Most Valuable Player award as the key man in the series.
Bhullar led the Tigers with a double-double, scoring 20 points and recording 16 rebounds, while starting point guards Chou Yi-hsiang and Su Yi-chieh contributed 17 and 14 points respectively.
Naturalized citizen Quincy Davis top-scored for Pauian Archiland with 25 points and seven rebounds.
Bhullar said he was happy to finish the series with last night’s win, because he had vowed to beat Pauian Archiland and prevent the series from going to Game Six, which was tentatively scheduled for today.
“I have to follow the English Premier League game on Sunday, because my team, Manchester United, is playing against Liverpool. So I don’t want to miss that match, and we must end this series today,” Bhullar said before the game, letting everyone know that he is a Red Devils fan.
The Tigers are likely to face the Yulon Luxgen Dinos in the finals, as the Dinos took a 3-2 series lead with a 65-59 win over Taiwan Beer in last night’s late game.
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