Beermen bow to Saigon Heat; Patriots gun for 11th win today

MANILA, Philippines - Saigon Heat claimed the scalp of another heavyweight in the third ASEAN Basketball League, ambushing San Miguel Beermen, 66-63, last night before a stunned Filipino crowd at the Ynares Sports Arena.

Jahmar Thorpe banged in 11 of his game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter, including a split in the last 8.1 seconds as the Heat snapped their two-game slide for 4-9 overall while handing the Beermen (10-4) their first loss after five straight wins.

The Beermen were the fourth upper rung team to get the axe from Saigon after defending champion Thailand Slammers, Singapore Slingers and Malaysia Dragons.

“As I’ve been saying, anybody can beat anybody on a given night on this league so you have to be ready to play and we weren’t ready tonight. Maybe they expected they only had to show up and win already,” rued SMB coach Bobby Parks, who took some time to come out of the locker room after the heartbreaker.

“We had so many opportunities to win the game, we had a 3-on-1 (situation) that we couldn’t finish. Come back, we fouled, they got two or three offensive rebounds. If you wanna be a championship team, those are the things you have to take care of,” he added.

The Heat caught up with the Slammers at joint seventh while the Beermen maintained their position at No. 2 behind the AirAsia Phl Patriots (10-2).

The Patriots seek their 11th win today when they play tough Singapore Slingers at 4 p.m. at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Fresh from sweeping their three-game, 10-day road trip, the front-running Patriots hope to once more draw solid performances from last week’s heroes Kiko Adriano and Bogs Raymundo to backstop imports Anthony Johnson and Nakiea Miller.

“We need to stay hot and focused,” said coach Glen Capacio, whose wards bid to repeat their 80-75 triumph in the first round, a game marked by skirmishes involving former Slingers import Donald Little and Patriots’ Ardy Larong and Erick Rodriguez.