Thursday, July 17, 2008 Amores get no love from Buddies
THE PAMPANGA Buddies showed no love to the Zamboanga Amores as they angled the helpless opponents with a 119-60 decision to open its bid in the Cebu leg of the 2008 Liga Pilipinas Championships held at the Cebu Coliseum last night.
After allowing the Amores to put up a decent fight in opening quarter, the Smart-backed Pampangueños started asserting its dominance in both inside and outside the shaded lane.
From a 48-37 lead at the end of the first half, Pampanga exploded with a 32-7 blitz in the third quarter and finished the game on a 39-16 production in the fourth to show its hungriness to steal the leg title from the home team M. Lhuillier Cebu Niños.
Main game
The Niños were playing against the Trace Laguna Stallions in the main game as of press time last night.
Six Pampanga players scored in double digit with Kiel Misa leading the offensive foray with 14 markers, followed by Marlon Kalaw with 13 and Don Villamin finishing with 12 markers.
The Amores, who arrived in Cebu coming from Zamboanga five hours before game time were playing without its key players--Peter Naron and Ronald Saracho.
Production
Pampanga’s victory set up a new Liga records as the highest league output (119), the highest production in a half (71 points second half), most number of assists (34), most number of total rebounds (54) and the most points made in fastbreaks (50 points).
Pampanga forced Zamboanga to commit 27 turnovers while pulling 13 steal that were converted into 32 turnover points.
The Buddies also shot impressively from the field 50-of-96 while sinking 14-of-38 triples, the league’s second best.
Zamboanga shot an aweful 37 percent (23-of-62). (RCM)
