TAMED and sent to the abyss the last time out, foreign guest team Bay Area woke up and unleashed its wrath against a shellshocked San Miguel Beer side last night.
Bolstered by a fiery start and a sustained charge, the Dragons mauled the Beermen 113-87 to get back on track in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Import Andre Nicholson led four other teammates in double digits with a game-high 39 points, to go with 12 rebounds, and two assists for Bay Area, while Hayden Blankley chipped in 17 markers, nine boards, and two dimes.
Songwei Zhu added 16 and five, while Kobey Lam and 7-foot-5 center Chuanxing Liu combined for 28 points for the Dragons, who redeemed themselves from an embarrassing 93-111 loss to Ginebra eight days ago and rose to 5-1.
SMB, which missed prized big man June Mar Fajardo after he underwent throat surgery, could not reprise its 113-105 triumph over Rain or Shine also last Sunday and dropped to 1-2.
Bay Area coach Brian Goorjian said his charges used their defeat to the Kings as a big motivation.
“I just thought defensively defending them (Beermen) that whole first three quarters and everything that we have given up over a hundred (points) each game. We haven’t gotten to the foul line,” Goorjian said. “I just thought we improved in all areas — we moved the ball a lot better after the first quarter and what we discussed before.”
“We learned from our loss (to Ginebra) which is nice to see that we got better against a quality team. So, I’m really happy with tonight’s performance,” he added.
The Dragons zoomed to a 58-40 spread at the halfway mark they stretched to as much as 86-56 on a Blankley three-pointer with 1:04 left in the third stanza before
Bay Area was in command 86-58 heading into the final stanza.
The Dragons hardly met resistance from the Beermen from there.
CJ Perez carried the fight for SMB with 19 points, nine caroms, and six feeds, while Vic Manuel got 15 markers and five rebounds.
Reinforcement Diamond Stone could only score a measly 11 points on 5-of-18 shooting from the field although he did grab 14 boards.
