Luke Nevill easily won the nods from members of the Basketball Writers’ Association with an outstanding weekend of play last week to land the league’s Player of the Week honor.
The Bank of Taiwan big man, who returned for his second tour of duty at the start of this season after spending his first one with the formerly Taiwan Mobile Leopards two years ago, showed why he is one of the premier centers in the league by netting 23.5 points and 14.5 rebounds per game against playoff-contending opponents to lead the Bankers to a pair of sound wins.
“[Nevill] has always shown a willingness to learn our system and work with our players since he first joined us and his continuing improvement is a big reason why we are doing much better now compared to before,” a very happy Bank of Taiwan head coach Hung Chun-che said of his hired gun from Australia earlier this week.
The match on Thursday last week between the Bankers and the Dacin Tigers was case in point as Nevill outfought his counterpart Bryan Davis of the US with a season-high 31 points and 16 rebounds to lift his team to a big win in overtime against the third-place Tigers who had won three of their past four heading into the contest.
“What makes [Nevill] so special for us is that his on-court presence makes our other guys like Chen Hsuan-hsiang, Chang Po-sheng and Lee Wei-che play that much better,” Hung added.
Nevill and the rest of the Banking Corp have a chance to extend their winning streak this week with three tough matches ahead, starting with tonight’s confrontation against Kinmen Kaoliang, followed by Saturday’s battle against the Fubon Braves, before Sunday’s showdown against top-ranked Pure Youth Construction.
With the end of the regular season just three weeks away and only a half-game separating the Bankers (fifth place) and the Braves (sixth place), this week promises to be crucial for the financial wizards who could clinch a playoff berth by winning all three games of the week.
Tonight’s Other Contest
Following the match between the Bankers and the Distillers at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City, Pure Youth are to take on the Braves in the second game where the Braves will feature the return of the league’s top scorer Earl Barron who missed all of last week to nurse a muscle strain.
The Braves will have to find at least one other player to share the scoring burden with Barron against the Builders’ renown pressure defense to have a chance at the win as the four-time defending champs will undoubtedly exploit their tendency to be a one-man team.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
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