Under Portugese head coach Mario Palma, who led Angola NT to 2000 and 2004 Olympics, Jordan has been playing with a well-organized offense. Jordanian forntlines Al Khas and Idais both can play inside and out, Islam Abbas is the enforcer on the team. And Jordanian guards have been showing consistency.
-- Taiwan 75-70 Qatar
SBL MVP Lin Chih-jay had one of his best international games Saturday, scoring 30 points and leading Taiwan NT to a 75-70 win over Qatar to boost Taiwan's record to 4-2 and tied with AIA in the second place.
Lin scored 7 points in a 9-0 run that increased Taiwan's lead to 14 points midway through the third quarter. He made 7 of 14 treys and was 5 for 5 from the charity stripe in the game.
Qatar cut the deficit to one point with less than 30 seconds to play. Tsun Wen-din had a three-point play with 20.1 seconds remaining to push the lead back to four points, grabbed an important defensive rebound and made one of two free-throws to make the score 73-68, Taiwan.
Taiwan lost to Qatar 103-96 in an epic double-overtime battle in the quarterfinal of last year's Doha Asian Games, but it has defeated Qatar three straight times in the Jones Cup during the last two years.
Taiwan beat Qatar to avenge its loss against Qatar in the Asian Games
Lin Chih-jay dropped 30 points
TWN: Lin Chih-jay 30p(7-14 3PT), Wu Dai-hao 12p+9rb, Tsun Wen-din 9p+6rb+3s+3blk, Chen Hsin-an 8p
QAT: E.A. Saeed 21p+6rb, Saad Abdulrahman Ali 15p+7rb+3s, Yasseen Ismail Musa 12p+8rb, D.A. Daoud 12p
-- Jordan 72-68 Lebanon
In this heated battle of two West Asia nations, Jordan rested its frontcourts Zaid Al Khas and both Ayman Idais and Islam Abbas played less than 20 minutes.
JOR: Mousa Bashir 20p+6rb, Rashiem Wright 19p, Osama Daghles 10p, Wesam Al-Sous 12p
LIB: Joe Vogel 19p+9rb, Fadi Khatib 18p
-- AIA 92-78 Kazakhstan
AIA: Reed Rawlings 25p, Alex Ruoff 18p+7rb, Zack Gibson 12p+9rb, Donald Sloan 12p, Brian Asbury 11p
KAZ: Anton Ponomarev 19p+10rb, Rustam Yargarliev 15p, M. Yevstigneyev 17p
-- Philippines 89-79 Iran
Philippines dropped 10 three-pointers in the game and opened up the game with a 32-22 second quarter.
PHI: James Yap 18p, Jimmy Alapag 14p+8a, Mark Caguioa 14p, Kelly Williams 12p
IRN: M.S. Nikkah Bahrami 22p, Hamed Hadadi 14p+14rb, Aidin Nikkah Bahrami 16p, Amir Amini 12p
-- South Korea 102-58 Japan
KOR: Yang Dong-guen 20p+5a, Kim Dong-woo 18p+7rb, Lee Dong-jun 18p+11rb, Cha Jae-young 12p, Yang Hee-jong 11p, Ha Seung-jin 10p+8rb
JAP: Yusuke Okada 12p, Takumi Ishizaki 10p
-- Standing
Jordan 5-1
AIA 4-2
Taiwan 4-2
Iran 3-3
Lebanon 3-3
Philippines 3-3
Qatar 3-3
South Korea 3-3
Japan 1-5
Kazakhstan 1-5