MACAU – The Hiroshima Dragonflies shone in the bright lights of this place known as the Las Vegas of Asia, rolling to an 81-65 victory over the New Taipei Kings to advance to the East Asia Super League finale on Friday night at the Studio City Event Center.
The Dragonflies, the reigning Japan B.League champions, continued to translate their success in their mother league to the EASL semifinals, pulling away in the second half to the delight of their traveling fans who filled the 5,000-seat venue.
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Hiroshima, Kai Sotto’s first team in Japan, turned to Dwayne Evans and Kerry Blackshear Jr. in eliminating a Kings side led by NBA veterans Jeremy Lin and Austin Daye.
The Dragonflies will face the survivor of the Ryukyu Golden Kings-Taoyuan Pilots matchup being played at posting time, with the championship game on Sunday at 7 p.m. at the same venue.
The real Hiroshima team, which posted an average winning margin of 11.2 points in the group stage, including a 94-63 rout of San Miguel, showed up in the second half where they outscored the Kings by 16 points after trailing by four points at the half.
“It was very good to win a tough game. Our big men got into foul trouble, but we just did a great job especially with our defense in the second half. And the bench just gave energy to the game,” Dragonflies coach Shogo Asayama said through an interpreter.
Blackshear came one foul away from fouling out, but stayed disciplined defensively to finish with 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field and 7 of 8 from the foul line, four boards, three asissts, one steal, and one block in in 23 minutes.
Evans dropped a game-high 20 points on a 10-of-11 clip from the charity stripe, 16 rebounds, three assists, and one steal in 35 minutes.
Watanabe pitches in
Ryu Watanabe added 16 points after making all but two of his eight field goals, including four treys, on top of five rebounds and three steals.
Joseph Lin, Jeremy’s brother, paced the Kings with 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting, four assists, two boards, one steal, and one block in 33 minutes, while Daye was the only other teammate who scored in double digits with 11 points.
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