The NLEX Road Warriors began their Asia League Summer Super 8 2018 campaign on the right foot, outclassing the Formosa Dreamers, 94-68, Tuesday afternoon at the Macao East Asian Games Dome in China.
Every Road Warrior scored in the win, with young gun Kenneth Ighalo leading the pack with 14 points along with eight rebounds. Big men JR Quiñahan and Raul Soyud had 12 markers apiece on a combined 9-of-16 shooting.
The Road Warriors hardly broke a sweat in the rout – they even led by a whopping 34 points, 58-24, with 23 seconds approaching the halftime break thanks to back-to-back three-pointers by Ighalo.
NLEX dominated Formosa in the second quarter by outscoring them, 32-13.
The MVP Group-owned ball club was able to hike their lead to as high as 42, 84-42, after Juami Tiongson’s wing triple with 8:57 to go in the fourth quarter went in. The Road Warriors finished the match with nine threes.
The Dreamers never had a clear chance of staging a comeback, but the sophomore ABL team team was able to finish the match strong with a 24-10 blitzkrieg inside the final eight minutes of the lopsided show.
Kenny Chien provided the silver lining for Formosa with 18 points on 50 percent shooting. Tian You Yang supplied 13 points, while Charles Barratt chipped in 12 markers – solely built from triples – in just 11 minutes.
The Road Warriors will gun for a 2-0 start in the tourney as they face the ET Land Elephants tomorrow, Wednesday, July 18, at 3:00 PM.
The Scores:
NLEX (94) – Ighalo 14, Quiñahan 12, Soyud 12, Buenafe 9, Tiongson 9, Marcelo 8, Taulava 7, Gotladera 7, Baguio 6, Uyloan 5, Tallo 3, Monfort 2.
Formosa (68) – Chien 18, Yang 13, Barratt 12, Wu 11, Lin 5, Chih 4, Wei 3, Li 2, Lee 0, Cai 0, Shih-Chieh 0.
Quarterscores: 26-14, 58-27, 79-42, 94-68.
