JAKARTA (Indonesia) - The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots are now the only undefeated team after beating Pelita Jaya Basketball, 88-64, as Window 2 of the Basketball Champions League Asia-East 2025 continued at the GMSB Kuningan, Sunday night.
The visitors from Chinese Taipei built up a sizable lead in the first half and weathered run after run to cut the lead down to single digits from the home team. This is the Pilot's second straight away win and now await for a three-game home stand later this month in Taipei City.
The Indonesia fans packed the venue for at least 2000 in attendance, largest crowd in this BCL Asia-East season, but it was not enough to rally the home team to a win. Pelita Jaya will have one day to rebound from the loss before they return to play against rivals NS Matrix Deers on Tuesday, April 8, at 20:00 local time in the same venue. The last time these two teams played against each other in Kuala Lumpur late last month, Pelita Jaya handed the deers a heartbreaking loss.
Game heroes: Alec Brown played his first BCL Asia-East game for the Pilots and made sure his presence was felt. Despite being labeled as a seven-foot big man, Brown scored the majority of his points from beyond the arc - going 5-7 from downtown. He ended up with 24 points and 8 rebounds, both leading the team, and 4 assists.
Turning point: Pelita Jaya had cut the Pilots lead which was once up to 20 points in the first half down to only 10 points early in the third quarter. However, as the home team were gaining momentum, Brown knocked down a three-pointer to keep the lead in the double-digit range.
A few minutes later, he'd drop another long range shot to knock the wind out of Pelita Jaya's run.
Stats don't lie: Brown shot the lights out, but he was not the only one. The Pilots shot 40.7 percent from the three-point line (11-27) while Pelita Jaya struggled in this regard, knocking down only 16.1 percent (5-31).
The Pilots also displayed great teamwork, dishing out 29 assists to Pelita Jaya's 15.
They said: "Really happy for the win, especially for the way that we played coming from some games at home... The team was really taking care of the job on this game... and they played really good defense today. Only one quarter with 20 points, this is a signal of this team since I’m the coach this is how we fight. This is how we play defense." - Iurgi Caminos, Head coach, Taoyuan Pauian Pilots
"It was a great defensive game for us to hold them to under 50 percent from 2 and under 20 from three. We didn’t let them get easy shots and it showed, but I mean, offensively, we passed the ball to each other. Didn’t turn it over too much. Play a good game, played solid, play smart most of all and, yeah, made some shots." - Alec Brown, Taoyuan Pauian Pilots
"I think we just got outplayed 1-12, we did not play team basketball... We weren’t playing our brand of basketball. I felt that we came into the game a little bit timid, but at the end of the day, I feel like we just gotta continue to fight because they’re humans and basketball players just like us. We still have another game to play against them at their home so we're looking forward to asjusting and see how we can improve from this game and come back and give them a better fight next time. Overall, I think this is a big learning lesson for us and we can learn a lot from this game and also bring it into our next game against NS Matrix where we can’t back down. We gotta come and fight every game." - Brandon Jawato, Pelita Jaya Basketball
"We have to come back stronger from the beginning from tipoff. We have to really lock in, play tough, play physical defense, solid communication. We need to move the ball." - Johannis Winar, Head coach, Pelita Jaya Basketball
FIBA