Ray Parks’ stellar three-year ABL run ended with a nightmare.
San Miguel Alab Pilipinas’ hopes of taking back-to-back championships crashed after suffering an 84-102 rout at the hands of Hong Kong Eastern, Wednesday evening at the Southorn Stadium in Wan Chai.
Alab suffered their sixth straight setback to close out their 2018-19 ABL campaign. The last two however proved to be the most painful as it came in the best-of-three quarterfinals.
The Philippine-based club team that is banked by San Miguel was off to a blazing start, leading 18-6 early. However, the home squad answered right back with a 16-1 blast.
Behind the hot-shooting of Lee Ki and the all-around presence of O’Darien Bassett, Hong Kong picked up a 56-37 halftime lead. Marcus Elliott would join in the fray in the third canto to lead by as much as 25 points.
Bassett scattered 28 points, 15 assists, five rebounds and three steals for Hong Kong, who made it to the Final Four for the third straight season. Lee torched Alab, shooting 3-of-3 from rainbow country for 18 points.
Elliott added 29 points and eight boards while third reinforcement Michael Holyfield had 11 points and 10 boards.
PJ Ramos and Renaldo Balkman paced Alab with 21 points and 13 rebounds and 16 points and 11 rebounds, respectively.
Two-time ABL MVP Parks finished his ABL duties with a line of 19 points, five rebounds, and two assists.
With this, Parks, the second overall pick in the 2018 PBA Rookie Draft, is set to make his debut in the Philippine-based league come the Commissioner’s Cup.
The Scores:
San Miguel Alab 84 – Ramos 21, Parks 19, Balkman 16, Urbiztondo 11, Rosser 9, Tiongson 3, Javelona 3, Alvano 2, Sumalinog 0, Alabanza 0, Torres 0.
Hong Kong 102 – Elliott 29, Bassett 28, Lee 18, Lau 12, Holyfield 11, SW Chan 3, Chung 1, Siu 0, Xu 0, Yang 0, YL Chan 0.
Quarterscores: 23-25, 37-56, 57-69, 84-102.
