After an embarassing outing by Pilipinas MX3 Kings during the 2015-16 season of the ASEAN Basketball League, Alab Pilipinas was out to bring back the Philippines’ glory in the regional league.
Behind Bobby Ray Parks, Jr., Alab had been able to enter the playoffs as the third seed to face the Singapore Slingers in the best-of-three semifinals series. Moreover, Kiefer Ravena had been added to the line-up to boost the firepower of the Philippine-based club team.
However, the campaign soured.
Parks fell to an injury in Game One and did not play in the second game. Making things worse, Alab had been swept by the Slingers in the series, 67-77 and 64-82.
Entering their sophomore campaign, Alab was able to finish the elimination round at third in the nine-team race. Come the quarterfinals, Alab played inspired basketball in Game One of their best-of-three quarterfinals series with the Saigon Heat, taking a 110-100 win.
And no one was more relieved than Parks and Lawrence Domingo, the two holdovers from last year’s squad.
“It feels great,” said reigning Local Most Valuable Player Parks, who finished the game with a team-high 24 points.
However, Domingo, who led Alab’s bench, was not in a celebratory mood afterwards.
The hosts led by as much as 22 points in the final frame, 97-75, but saw their lead sliced to just 10 points to close out the contest. For Domingo, it showed that they still need to work on a lot of things to close out the series on Saturday in Ho Chi Minh City.
“A win is a win but we’re not leaving the game happy about it,” shared Domingo, who had 18 points and six rebounds. “There are a lot of things we have to work on. Being this is the franchise’s first playoff win, that’s great but we want to be there in the end.
“That’s our focus and we’ll try to move forward.”
For Parks, who is Alab’s skipper, this is just part of the pains that the team has to go through as they try to end the country’s five-year title drought.
“We have to continue to grow. We can’t overlook our opponent. They’re a great team and they got firepower,” added the second-generation cager.
“We gotta do a better job being smarter, sticking to our character as a defensive team.”
