Jones Cup: KBL champs too poised for gallant RoS

Korean Basketball League champion Anyang KGC was simply too poised for the hard-fighting Rain or Shine side, eking out an 87-77 victory in the 2023 William Jones Cup at the Taipei Heping Gymnasium on Thursday, Aug. 17.

Fresh from notching their first win in the annual invitational international tournament, the Elasto Painters found themselves pushed back to the wall against the team of Gilas Pilipinas FIBA World Cup aspirant Rhenz Abando.

Abando skipped the Jones Cup tournament, but Anyang still got plenty of firepower led by former Philippine Basketball Association import Du'vaughn Maxwell and J Hoon Park.

Maxwell, who played for two conferences for Phoenix Super LPG, combined forces with Park.

Park led the way with 25 points for Anyang, which continued its dominance against teams from the PBA.

In the East Asia Super League Champions' Week early this year, Anyang walloped San Miguel Beer, 142-87.

Maxwell contributed 15 points on top of bine rebounds, but also provided boundless of energy for Anyang, which led by as many as 20 points.

Rain or Shine trimmed down a once 20-point Anyang lead to just 10 behind a 6-0 spurt from Ange Kouame and Andrei Caracut, 63-73 with 6:40 left.

But Park and Maxwell, however, connived on a 9-5 counter run that proved to be enough to cushion a late barrage of triples from Rain or Shine.

Caracut put up a second-straight stellar showing with 19 points while Kouame added a double-double of 15 points and 13 rebounds for the Filipinos, who dropped to a 1-5 record in the standings.

Rain or Shine takes a break on Friday before it wraps up its assignments against Japan U22 national team and UC Irvine on the weekend.