Taipei

Update 2023: Check out our latest Taipei basketball post!

_____________________

Since our chief content creator has been grounded for the majority of this year due to the pandemic, as one of his faithful editors, I laced’em up and took up the pen (keyboard) to talk about these legendary courts in Taipei, Taiwan.

These super accessible, well maintained courts are well known to host some of the best outdoor competition in all of Taipei. You will see a diverse set of players, from beginners to high school and college basketball players, and even SBL (Taiwanese professional league) players have been known to play here once in awhile.

Jeremy Lin even played here during the height of Linsanity. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQHTFTkpJew&ab_channel=jlin7

Location

Located in the heart of Taipei, the courts are easy to get to, and you definitely don’t need a scooter. It’s a 5 minute walk from the nearest Metro stop (take the Blue line to Zhongxiao Xinsheng stop then get out at Exit 1). There are also plenty of buses that can get you there. Or you can do what I prefer, jump on a YouBike, which is the city wide bike sharing program, and there’s a YouBike rack right outside the courts.  

Sidenote, I hate the English literal translation of the court name. The court isn’t on an elevated road, the name in Chinese 新生高架橋籃球場 is referring to the highway overpass above the courts.

Courts Overview

The 2 full courts are tucked away under a highway overpass right behind a skateboard park. It’s perfect when it is raining or when it’s too hot out and you still have the itch to play. And warning, it rains A LOT in Taipei.

The courts are open from 7am to midnight. It does get a little dark on the front court especially in the late afternoons, but they do have lights that turn on around 5pm.

The court surface is this smoother cement material, which you don’t see much in the US. It helps when you fall since you won’t scrape up your knees and legs as badly compared to a regular blacktop surface. It can get a little dusty, but usually grip is not an issue.  The court surface slopes down a tad on both sides of the basket towards the sidelines, but it’s nothing egregious that should affect your game too much.  

The three-point line feels far like farther than a college 3. As for the baskets, both the rims and backboards are actually more forgiving than they look.

There is almost always a game going on, no matter what time of day, even during lunch time on a weekday. WARNING: It can get busy during weeknights and super packed during weekend late afternoons and evenings. If you’re coming by yourself, I recommend coming late afternoons on weekdays and early afternoons on weekends. During those times, there are usually still a couple courts where people are just shooting around, and it’s easier to find other players by themselves that want to play together. If you’re coming for the best that the competition has to offer, come on weeknights or late weekend afternoons and evenings.

Game

The game here is almost always half court 3v3 to 6 with make it take it, all ones and take everything back rules. The locals call 3v3 game 鬥牛 (dou niu) which translates to bull fighting, don’t ask me why… When it’s busy, all 4 half courts will have games going. I have seen a full court game once, but it was amongst a large group of friends and in the early afternoon when it was not as busy.  Winning team stays on, and there are no limits to the number of games you can win. When it’s super busy, there might be 2, 3 or more teams waiting, and usually as soon as the game ends, the next team jumps on and starts with the ball on offense.

When you have your team of 3 and have picked out which court you want to challenge, announce to the two teams playing that you are signing up your team for the next available game, in Chinese you can say: 我要報一隊 (wo yao bao yi dui). If you only have 2, you can still sign up, and once it’s your turn, just ask someone good on one of the other teams to play with you. They almost always will.

As you can imagine, playing to 6 with make it take it, the games can go FAST. You might touch the ball once and the game could be over. Thankfully the game is all ones, so there’s almost no point in taking a long 3. Players will go pretty hard, since nobody wants to play for 2 mins , lose, then have to sit for another 20.

One other idiosyncrasy, players will usually announce the score before each point, and the game point (when the team has 5) is pronounced “la”. Not sure of the Chinese character or if it’s Taiwanese. If score is tied, they will say 平, pronounced ping. E.g. 3-3 is 三平 (sanping) and 5-5 is la平 (laping).

Competition and Players

Again, the competition here during evenings and late weekend afternoons is probably the best that Taipei has to offer for outdoor pickup ball.

Age ranges from high school kids to people in their 40s. On weekdays, it tends to be more high school kids during the afternoons, and older guys in their 20s and 30s that have gotten off work during the evenings. During the busy times, there is always one or two courts that are the most competitive and usually have the most teams waiting to play.

Almost everyone playing here is a local, especially during the pandemic, but you will still see an occasional foreigner now and then. People usually are pretty friendly and it’s easy to ask people to play with you and to ask for their LINEs afterwards to meetup to play again.

Playing styles: Like most 3v3s, games tend to be more about isolations and post ups with an occasional screen set or backdoor cut being executed. This is especially the case when you get on a team with people you don’t know. The older guys tend to be very physical and polished around the rim (even if they show up wearing cargo pants…), while the younger guys are fast and shifty. Less 3s are taken since everything counts as only 1 point.

Conclusion

If you’re ever in Taipei with the itch to play ball, it’s hard to beat what the Xinsheng courts have to offer. Call up your basketball buddies or come by yourself, you will almost always find a game worth playing here.