The Macau Black Bears have won (111-97) against Busan KCC Egis in their second home game in East Asia Super League (EASL) group B.
After the 3-point defeat to the Golden Kings (93-96) last week, the Bears have regrouped and presented a strengthened team with a 7-player roster.
As in the first match, when Macau beat the New Taipei Kings (109-97), team captain Jeantal Cylla again stood out, playing over 38 minutes and scoring 34 points.
However, the Player of the Match honor went to another of the Bears players, Damian Chongqui, who played over 39 minutes and scored 22 points on top of 12 assists.
In a post-game interview, Chongqin explained that he owed the result of the match yesterday to the team’s effort and training.
“I was just trying to be aggressive. I want to win, and if that is what I need to do all day to win, that’s what I am going to do,” Chongqin said, adding that the team owed the final result to “being resilient and aggressive and being able to perform a lot of things that we have been doing in practice and execute them [in the match].”
The match, played at the Bears’ home ground at Studio City Macau, got off to a challenging start for the Bears, with Busan finishing the first quarter up by two points (32-34). However, that was the only time that the Korean Basketball League winners had the advantage. From then on, the Bears went on to lead by five points at halftime (61-56).
Both teams maintained high scores with minimal turnovers through the third quarter, with the Macau team holding an advantage of seven points (81-74).
On Busan’s side, star players Deonte Burton and Leon Williams carried much of the load, with Williams showing signs of fatigue in the last quarter after playing all 40 minutes of the match.
Burton achieved the score-high of the match with 35 points, one more than Cylla from the Bears, while Williams scored 21 from the Busan side.
As the Bears coach Garrett Kelly said both at the start of the match and at halftime, this was a decisive match for the local team, and the Bears delivered, keeping their hopes up for the EASL. In their next match on Dec. 11, the Macau Black Bear will again face the New Taipei Kings, this time at the Bears’ home ground. The match is scheduled for 9:10 p.m. local time.
