THE national men's team of Qatar dealt Rain or Shine another blow in the 42nd Jones Cup with a 93-86 win at the Taipei Heping Gymnasium on Tuesday.
The Qataris put together an 11-4 run midway through the fourth quarter to break free from a tight 73-all contest and take an 84-77 lead which they never relinquished to the end.
Now handled by former Greece men's national team coach Thanasis Skourtopoulos, the West Asian country scored its first win in the tournament, while handling the Elasto Painters their fourth straight loss.
Qatar naturalized player Michael Lewis scored a team-high 19 points, and joined forces with Nedim Muslic as they accounted for 15 of the Qataris' 24 points in the final period.
Muslic finished with 12 behind the 18 of Ndoye Seydou.
Import Nick Evans had 20 points to show the way for Rain or Shine, which again sputtered in the endgame just like it did against United Arab Emirates in a 73-71 loss the other day.
Anton Assistio led the Rain or Shine locals with 16 points and Leonard Santillan had 12.
Just before the Qataris broke free, Nick Demusis and big man Haracic Meho got entangle in a slight altercation with 7:25 left to play.
Four games are still left in the Elasto Painters' schedule against Iran (Wednesday), Korean Basketball League (KBL) champion Anyang KGC (Thursday), Japan U-22 team (Saturday), and league leader University of California, Irvine (Sunday).
The Filipinos take a break on Friday.
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