MANILA – San Miguel-Alab Pilipinas continued its dominance over Mono Vampire of Thailand in the 2018-2019 ASEAN Basketball League after a 78-59 drubbing on Saturday night at the Stadium 29 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Renaldo Balkman led the way with 31 points, six rebounds, two assists and four steals, while Peter John Ramos contributed 16 points, 19 rebounds and seven assists for the Philippine side.
The defending champions Alab Pilipinas have improved their record to 16-3 with the victory and have completed a season series sweep against their finals opponent last year.
Alab Pilipinas were clinging to a 24-19 lead at the end of first period before slowly widening it to 40-33 at the half on conversions from Balkman, Ramos and Bobby Ray Parks Jr.
The Philippine squad slowly pulled away with Balkman dropping 11 of his points in a furious 15-7 scoring run in the third quarter that pushed the lead to 55-40 on a triple by Joshua Urbiztondo.
The struggled continued for the Thailand squad in the fourth period which the Philippines took advantage to build its largest lead of the match at 20 points on a dunk by Ramos with six minutes left.
Malcolm White and Michael Singletary finished with 17 points each, while Thai-American Tyler Lamb chipped in 13 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and two steals for Mono Vampire (5-14)./PN
