C. Taipei swamps Saudi Arabia, gears up for Gilas

MANILA, Philippines – A hot shooting Chinese Taipei side rained triples on Saudi Arabia, 90-67, on Friday to underscore its readiness to take on the home team in one of the most anticipated first round matchups in the 2013 Manila FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship.

The Taiwanese fired 17 triples, seven coming from Cheng Ju Lu and four from Taiwanese-American Douglas Creighton, in a show of force to win their second straight at the Mall of Asia Arena.

“We needed to win today since we’re going to play the home team tomorrow (Saturday),” Taipei coach Chin-Che Hsu.

Creighton, who finished with 16 points going 4-of-9 from the three-point territory, emphasized the importance of their outside shooting especially against Gilas Pilipinas.

“We’ll need our outside shooting to open up our bigs inside,” Creighton said.

Lu paced the vastly-improved Taipei squad with 27 points.  Ace guard Chih-Chieh Lin only played 14 minutes and finished with seven markers after exploding for 27 yesterday against Jordan.  

Hsu also opted to rest naturalized player Quincy Davis playing him for only 21 minutes but the import still wound up with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

While Gilas Pilipinas had a hard time three-fourths of the way against Saudis, Taipei had bag the game right from the start racing to a 17-point spread, 31-14, after the opening quarter.

The Taiwanese are in great position to sweep the first round and top Group A but cautioned that their next game will be the toughest.

“We’ll be playing them in the Pilipinas (Philippines),” Hsu said.