Taiwan Beer dominated the Dacin Tigers from the get-go and went on to defeat the top-seeds 95-76 in Game One of the Championship Finals at the Taipei County Sports Complex in Sinjhuang on Friday evening.
The highly anticipated showdown between the top two teams in the league was one-sided throughout the game, with the two-time defending champs getting a brilliant effort out of team icon Lin “the Beast” Chih-jeh, who tallied a game-high 29 points.
Also starring for the Beer crew was shooting guard Yang Yu-ming, who chipped in 16 after averaging 18.7 points per game in Taiwan Beer’s three-game sweep over the Yulon Luxgens in the first round of the playoffs.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The critical Game One began with the brewers taking a 25-16 lead in the opening quarter behind a trio of three-pointers from the Beast, after which the defense took over in the second quarter to hold the Tigers to only a dozen points and close out the half 46-26.
Dacin managed to pull within 10 of Taiwan Beer in the third, with center Byron Allen and Tien Lei scoring from close range — including three monstrous dunks — only to see the Beer crew answer with an 11-0 run to pull away in the fourth.
Four Taiwan Beer players scored in double-digits. Along with his 29 points, the Beast collected 10 rebounds and dished out four assists in a well-rounded effort.
The Tigers’ lone spotlight was Allen — the only Dacin player to score more than 10 in the game — with a game-high 14 boards demonstrating his inside presence.
Failure to contain the perimeter game by the Beast, who ended up sinking five threes, proved costly for the Tigers as they dug an early hole they never recovered from. The rest of the series will be an uphill battle for them as the winners of Game One have gone on to win the title in all five previous SBL seasons.
Taiwan kept their hopes of advancing to next year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC) alive with a 9-1 victory over South Africa in a qualifier at the Taipei Dome on Saturday, backed by solid pitching. Taiwan last night played against Nicaragua. As of press time, Nicaragua was leading 6-0. Bouncing back from Friday’s struggles on the mound, when Taiwanese pitchers surrendered 15 runs to Spain, Team Taiwan on Saturday kept the visiting team in check, allowing just one run in the bottom of the fourth inning. Starting pitcher Sha Tzu-chen struck out one and allowed no hits, except for a hit-by-pitch over
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