Taiwan’s top hoop stars last night were the focus of basketball fans around the world as Taiwan Beer rebounded from a seven-point halftime deficit to beat the Yulon Luxgen Dinos 94-74, evening up their Super Basketball League (SBL) Finals series 2-2 at the Hao Yu Sports Center in New Taipei City.
The International Basketball Federation has made the SBL Finals available for an international audience starved of live-court action due to lockdowns and shuttered seasons amid the COVID-19 pandemic by livestreaming all of the games on its YouTube and Facebook channels.
The Yulon Dinos took Pauian Archiland in the first-round playoffs with a three-game sweep to advance to the finals, where they faced Taiwan Beer, who finished the regular season in first place thanks to their 25-7 record.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Taiwan Beer forward Kentrell Barkley of the US led the team with 23 points and 13 rebounds for a double-double, while his partner up front, Huang Tsung-han, had 17 points and three rebounds.
Other players had double-digit totals — including Huang Cheng with 16 and Chiang Yu-an with 12 — while center Ihor Zaytsev of Ukraine put up 14 points and nine rebounds.
The Yulon Dinos roared to a 47-40 halftime lead, but Taiwan Beer hit their stride in the second half, outscoring their opponents 54 to 27 to close with a runaway 20-point triumph.
Taiwan Beer head coach Chou Chun-san — a regular on Taiwan’s national squad and part of the Hung Kuo Elephants three-title dynasty in the 1990s — said that it was great to even up the series, which gave his players a confidence boost.
“We tried different combinations at the start and did not get into our rhythm in the first quarter, but we managed to keep the game close throughout the second quarter,” Chou said after the game, which was played behind closed doors as a disease prevention measure.
“After halftime, we beefed up our defense. Our players took advantage of turnovers and steals, scoring on fast breaks,” he added.
Chou, looking ahead to tomorrow’s game, said he aims to prevail over the Yulon Dinos again and take the lead in the series.
TITLE CAMPAIGN: The victory sent the Monkeys to the Taiwan Series for the third time in the past four seasons as they seek their first championship since 2019 The stage is set for the Taiwan Series after the Rakuten Monkeys on Monday beat the Uni-President Lions 4-3 in Game 5 of the CPBL Challenger Series in Kaohsiung. The Monkeys, who entered the top of the ninth scoreless, tied the game with a three-run blast by Lin Chih-ping and scored the winning run in the 10th on an RBI single by Lin Li, a three-time batting champion in the CPBL. Both players entered the game as pinch hitters. “The coach told me to stay prepared as a pinch hitter in the later part of the game. My teammates had
The Ministry of Sports on Wednesday night called for the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) to address issues in Taiwanese soccer after national manager Huang Che-ming on Tuesday resigned following Taiwan’s elimination in AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Taiwan on Tuesday were thrashed 6-1 by Thailand in their Group D tie at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Taiwan finished with no points, after losing all four of their matches, eliminating them from qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Huang made his surprise resignation at a post-match news conference, following three losses since he took over the team from English coach Gary White in August. Huang
HIT AND RUN: Toronto manager John Schneider got his wish that his team ‘find some slug in the air out here,’ as the Blue Jays combined to total 611m of homers Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle. Vladimir Guerrero Jr and George Springer on Wednesday woke up the Jays, as Toronto hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 and closing to 2-1 in the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat. “If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said. Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits. “I wasn’t really executing when they got
The Rakuten Monkeys on Sunday downed the CTBC Brothers 2-1, handing the hosts their second consecutive loss in the best-of-seven CPBL Taiwan Series at the Taipei Dome. Monkeys’ ace starter Pedro Fernandez of the Dominican Republic dominated on the mound, cruising through six scoreless innings before giving up a run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning. He gave up only three hits and walked two batters in a 93-pitch outing, giving his Taoyuan-based team an edge. Offensively, the Monkeys’ leadoff batter Lin Li hit Brothers starter Brandon Leibrandt’s pitch over the center-field wall in the game’s first at-bat,
RSS