Saturday, January 27, 2007

Thomas' return and defense led ETSN to second win

Delvin Thomas, who injured his knee in the season opener, returned after two weeks and helped ETSN to an easy 92-66 victory, its second win of the season, over Bank of Taiwan Friday with his defense. In the other game, Tsun Wen-din and Chen Hsin-an combined for 53 points as Yulon held off Dacin's furious rally with a 94-93 win.

Thomas scored only 4 points, shooting 1-of-4 from the field and 2-of-6 from the line, but dominated the paint with his tenacious defense. With his long arms and mobility, Thomas blocked four shots and altered many others, limited BOT to a miserable 20-of-63 shooting.

ETSN was led by Cheng Jen-wei's 20 points and 10 rebounds and Huang Bao-tse's season-high 20 points in the team's best game of the young season. Yang Yu-min had 14 points and 4 steals while Wu jia-long had 12.

Wang Shin-kai led BOT with 18 points. Chen Shun-hsiang, who has seen quite an improvement during the past two weeks coming off the bench, had another good game of 15 and 6.

Yulon PG Lee Hsueh-lin made a deciding three with 52 seconds to go and Tien Lei missed his last shot, a driving layup, as Yulon continued to own the Tigers, beating Dacin for the fourth straight time.

Lee's three increased Yulon's lead to three before Chang Chi-feng made a layup and cut Dacin's deficit to one. Tsun Wen-din missed both free-throws and gave Dacin the last chance to pull out a win, but Tien Lei was unable to convert his driving layup before the final horn.

Tsun had 29 points, 6 rebounds and season-high 11 assists. Chen Hsin-an finally shook off his shooting slump and scored 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting. Chou Shih-yuan added 20. Lee Hsueh-lin had 9 points to go with 4 rebounds and 5 steals.

Tien Lei had 35 points, 11 boards and 5 assists to pace Dacin, which dropped to 2-4. Chang Chi-feng had 17 and Lin Yi-huei had 16. PG Su Yi-chieh had 10 points and 9 assists.

(Photo: Tien Lei, courtesy of ESPN Taiwan)