The Westports Malaysia Dragons and Alab Pilipinas went all the way down to the wire but the home squad held their ground and got a huge boost from Jonathan Wong to hand the defending champs their first loss!” (Photo: ASEAN Basketball League/Facebook)
Jonathan Wong led the way to his team’s win with 21 points, six rebounds, and four assists, guided by Nnanna Edqu, who scored 15 points and got nine rebounds. For Team Philippines, it was actually Defensive Player of the Year Renaldo Balkman who scored the most at 31 points, also contributing 14 rebounds and four blocks. PJ Ramos also had a double-double performance with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists.
During the entirety of the game, the opposing teams just fired back shots, exchanging, until the Philippines had their highest lead at the nine-minute mark of the fourth quarter, where they were up at 59-53. But, the Dragons fought back until they were in the lead 62-63. At the last two minutes, Wong kept his team consistent with the score at 68-67, until Ramos missed a layup that prompted the Dragons to take advantage to give themselves a three-point lead.
Afterwards, Coach Jimmy Alapag of Alab Pilipinas called a time-out at the 1:43-minute mark to see how they would answer back, but Ballman’s bucket from the play had the Dragons give another shot. Ramos would not give it up for his team with a layup at the 40-second mark, the Philippines then leading at 71-71. However, unfortunately for the visiting Filipinos, the home team did not want to disappoint their crowd, so Wong made an easy bucket at the last few seconds of the game to end the match leading by one point.
This ended Alab’s five-game winning streak, while Team Malaysia rose 3-3 in the standings.
The Alapag-led squad will be returning to the Philippines for their next game as they face Hong Kong Eastern next Friday, January 11.