Knights Gets 10th Straight Win, “Nice, Seo Jang-Hoon“

The SK Knights earned the best Christmas gift.

The SK Knights recorded one or more victory against all teams for the first time among 10 professional basketball clubs, defeating an affiliate team, SK Bigs after two straight losses. With this win, the SK Knights also recorded its 10th consecutive win, the best record in this season and in the franchise history, maintaining the co-leader with the Tong Yang Orions.

In the 2001-2002 Anycall Professional Basketball League, the SK Knights could win over the SK Bigs thanks to the strong power play of Seo Jang-Hoon and Eric Martin underneath the basket at Jamsil Gymnasium.

From the first quarter, as Seo Jang-Hoon and Martin began to dominate the paint zone, collecting team`s 12 rebounds by themselves, 6 for each, Bigs` Johnny McDowell had to stay only in the perimeter to commit 4 errors. And Chris White (1 rebound), who joined the team as a substitute for injured Earl Ike, could not even penetrate into the goal area. To make matters worse, the Bigs` team field goal percentage was only 39 percent.

The Kights grabbed a relatively easy 88-80 win, maintaining the opening enthusiasm until the end of game. Seo Jang-Hoon (31 points and 12 rebounds) and Martin (15 points, 16 rebounds and 7 blocks) took the control inside the zone, and Jo Sang-Hyun supported from the field, tying up his counterpart Moon Kyung-Eun (13 points) and scoring 23 points (5 three-pointers).

The SK Bigs recorded its 4th straight loss since Earl Ike was put on the disabled list.

At Yeosu, the Korea Tender earn a great 121-108 win over the LG Sakers in the first encounter since both completed a 4-to-4 trade, which is the biggest trade in the KBL history. For both teams, the newly-acquired players showed the good perfomance. Korea Tender`s Erick Eberz scored 45 points, and Carl Boyd (33 points) and Michael Maddux (25 points) successfully played their roles for the LG. But LG`s Jo Sung-Won scored only 12 points.

The KCC Egis defeated the Mobis Automons 99-91 to record its 3rd consecutive win on the excellent performance of Jackie Jones (24 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks), who was released from the disabled list in six weeks since he was injured on November 11th and scored 12 points only in the third quarter.

Anyang was still `a grave` of the Samsung Thunders. Losing to the SBS Stars by 68-77, the Samsung falling into the Anyang jinx marked three straight losses against the SBS Stars. With this loss, the Thunders failed to achieve one or more victory against all teams again. SBS`s Lyon Derricks (13 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists), who was a last year`s 7-time triple doubler to mark the best record in a single season and in the KBL history, accomplished his first triple double for this season in this game.

Sang-Ho Kim hyangsan@donga.com