MANILA – NLEX Road Warriors simply couldn’t find any answers to the barrage of triples by ET Land Elephants 60-75 in their Asia League Summer Super 8 encounter on Wednesday at the Macau East Asian Games Dome in China.
With the defeat, Road Warriors’ trip to the semifinals was delayed – for now. Elephants, meanwhile, are advancing, as it improved to 2-0.
Unlike in its 94-68 win over Formosa Dreamers in the tournament’s curtain-raiser on Tuesday – where it deployed a balanced attack – only Mac Tallo finished in double figures with 13 points along with five rebounds against Elephants.
The match had been tight in the first half until the South Korean ball club found its stroke in the second half and pulled away.
Elephants opened the third quarter with a 13-3 spree en route to a 45-33 lead with 6:05 on the clock.
Road Warriors played catch-up from there and even neared by 3 but Elephants was just too hard to stop, especially in the final frame.
Kim Jung Nyon’s triple propelled ET Land to their biggest lead 75-52 with 4:16 left.
Elephants shot just 25-of-68 from the floor in general but 15 of its converted shots came from beyond the arc – way too far from the four triples by the Filipino squad.
Three led Elephant’s attack, with Park Sung Jin on the forefront with 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
Park Bong Jin provided 12 points and 11 rebounds while Jeong Hyu Geun had 11 markers built on three triples with seven boards.
Road Warriors will look to bounce back against Xinjiang Flying Tigers of China on Thursday. (Tiebreaker Times)
