IN its official maiden foray on local soil, foreign guest team Bay Area fired a warning to the rest of the field last night: these Dragons are no pushovers.
Thanks to a blistering start it sustained all the way, Bay Area dismantled hapless Blackwater 133-87 to launch its bid on a high in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
Import Myles Powell dazzled with a game-high 41 points on four three-pointers, on top of eight rebounds, and three assists for the Dragons, while Glen Yang chipped in 22 markers, five boards, and seven dimes.
Songwei Zhu, Kobey Lam, and Hayden Blankley also had 13, 13, and 11 points for Bay Area.
Dragons coach Brian Goorjan said his charges simply showed up with their A-Game led by Powell, an NBA campaigner with the Philadelphia Sixers.
“We’ve struggled being here guarding the quickness that the Filipino league possesses. It’s been difficult for us and that’s been our focus point. I thought at the start of the game our defense was good. We stayed in front of them, and we did a good job on balls,” Goorjan said.
“On the offensive end, we really clicked. We talked about the importance of playing with the ball at the hands of Myles and I thought he made good decisions getting everybody involved and he was somebody they had trouble guarding,” he added.
Bay Area, which is already in the country the past two months, came out with guns blazing and zoomed to a 64-36 spread at the half.
Showing no mercy, the Dragons stretched the difference to 97-65 heading into the payoff period.
Bay Area hardly met resistance from the out-of-sync Bossing from there and led by as much as 133-87 on two free throws by Jianhua Song which stood as the final count.
