Taiwan vs. Australia 85 - 90 (21658)Prior to facing Taiwan, Australia so far had a relatively smooth run in the Asia Championships. However the hosts Taiwan with home court advantage also too have been going strongly and this match could turn out to be the decider of who finishes on top of Pool D. In such an important match, Australia surprisingly brought in Vijaya-Balan Singh
(18086049) for his debut match. Watch this kid as he will be a big name in Australia for seasons to come. Singh started off the bench and came on with Australia down 5-6. His energy was what Australia needed as it gave them the spark to push out to a comfortable lead at the first break 22-12. But Taiwan wasn't going to back down even with a couple of their players in foul trouble early on. Hai Wen
(14240338) led the Taiwanese team back into the game winning the second quarter 24-17. This closed the gap at the main break back to a single shot, 3 points.
Australia started out strongly in the second half taking back control of the game. But Taiwan wasn't going to let their hard fought second quarter go to waste as they crawled their way back with a 11-2 run to take a 3 point lead midway through the third term. The rest of the quarter will eventuate to trading baskets as Australia's margin from the second term was trimmed down to 2 points. The final quarter will turn out to be probably Cunming's
(9471882) best game so far this season for Australia. Although bricking a free throw from the pine didn't impress the coach at all. He was unstoppable scoring 12 big points as Taiwan struggle to defend against him. In the dying seconds, Australia's clutch free throw shooting and defensive efforts were able to prevent Taiwan in launching any late treys which got them over the line.
Key players for Taiwan in this match were in their front court with Hai Wen dominating with 26 points, 17 boards and 3 steals. He was not alone with Chee Choong
(15117136) contributing a double double as well. Even though Taiwan controlled the boards, their sloppy ball handling from just their front court, 17 turnovers, probably cost them the game. For Australia, they were too led by their front court bigs in Duffill
(10080211) and Cunming. They scored 21 and 24 points respectively although will need to work on boxing out as they only had 8 boards between them. On the defensive side, both Bowman
(13434729) and Wazza
(6863683) played a great game. They had a combine 5 steals and 1 block and held the Taiwanese small forwards to mediocre scoring.
This win mean that Australia have kept their unbeaten run going and have also defeated one of the favourites for the Asia Championships. Australia's next match will be up against Macau.