The Kaohsiung Aquas continued to raise the bar in basketball’s T1 LEAGUE Sunday, setting a new single-game points record as they pushed past the Taoyuan Leopards 133-116.
Wave after wave of attack saw the Aquas outhustle the visiting Taoyuan Leopard 133-116 at Kaohsiung Arena, breaking the Tainan TSG GhostHawks’ previous record of 132 points from January.
Aquas head coach Brendan Joyce said at the post-game press conference that he was confident in his team’s scoring but knew it was going to be a high-scoring game because of the speed in both sides’ lineups.
“It was obviously a very high scoring game, also because of the way the Leopards play. They didn’t have their center so they wanted to play a quick game up and down,” Joyce said.
Joyce was referring to the Leopards’ 211-centimeter tall Deyonta Davis, a former NBA star who played for the Memphis Grizzlies from 2016-2018 and the Atlanta Hawks from 2018-2019.
Without Davis, the Leopards’ remaining import players were likely to push and attack hard, Joyce said, so he called for his team to play better defense.
The Aquas’ latest win comes after an 87-71 home victory against the Taichung Wagor Suns Saturday.
“We were still a little inconsistent, but these games are very difficult when you beat a top team you need to beat the night before and you come in against a team you expect to beat. We only found out just before the game that their big guy was out, so they came out with nothing to lose,” Joyce said.
Taking advantage of the mismatch, Aquas’ 217-cm center Mindaugas Kupšas was a danger in the paint leading all scorers with a double-double of 37 points, 17 rebounds, four blocks, and two assists, including shooting 15-18 from the free-throw line.
Leopards forward Caelan Tiongson answered back with 30 points, four rebounds, and two assists, which gained him praise from opposition coach Joyce.
“Even with Tiongson, he played very hard, I really like his game. He’s not only a scorer, he plays defense and he is a team guy. He was trying really hard to upset Kupšas, and he was doing it, but we knew that they just didn’t have anybody for Kupšas,” Joyce said.
Leopards forward Troy Williams also had a remarkable delivery of a double-double of 25 points, 17 rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and one steal, while teammate John Gillon also posted 24 points.
Tiongson at the postgame press conference said that even though his team lost, he felt that his teammates were playing for each other.
“I’m sitting here right now because I had 30 points, but I only had four rebounds. And they out-rebounded us 63-41, so I can be better and there are things everyone on our team can do to be better. So, we’re going to just keep fighting for the rest of the year,” Tiongson said.
After the latest win, the Aquas continue to reign at the top of the six-team standings with an 11-3 record, while the Leopards are bottom having only won one game out of 11.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel