HONG Kong Eastern made short work of a listless San Miguel Beer side, 84-74, and stayed in contention for a Final Four berth in the EASL Home And Away Season 2 on Wednesday night.
The visiting team raced to an early 26-7 lead and weathered a desperate San Miguel comeback at the Philsports Arena to improve to 3-2 (win-loss) in Group B and complete a three-game sweep of SMB counting a face-off in the PBA.
"It’s not easy to beat any team three times in a row and so I’m proud of what my boys have done,” said Eastern coach Mensur Bajramovic.
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The Beermen, who played without injured players Marcio Lassiter and Chris Ross, suffered their fifth successive loss and remain at the bottom of the standings.
Former San Miguel import Cameron Clark torched his ex-teammates for 25 points on 10-of-19 shooting to go with eight rebounds, while fellow reinforcement Chris McLaughlin had 15 points, 17 rebounds, and five assists.
Big man June Mar Fajardo paced San Miguel with 20 points and 13 rebounds and sparked a fourth-quarter run by an all-Filipino Beermen five in the final seven minutes.
A putback by Fajardo got San Miguel within 77-70, but Eastern answered with five straight points led by Kobey Lam to make it 12-point lead with a minute left in the game.
The scores:
Eastern (84) – Clark 25, McLaughlin 15, Blankley 11, Yang 11, Lam 10, Cheung 7, Cao 5, Leung 0, Chan 0, Pok 0, Zhu 0, Xu 0.
San Miguel (74) – Fajardo 20, Trollano 20, Tiongson 8, Cruz 6, Jones 6, Perez 5, Teng 4, Tautuaa 4, Cahilig 1, Rosales 0, Nava 0, Narcis 0.
Quarterscores: 30-11; 48-32; 70-50; 84-74.
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