It will be the unbeatens Friendster and Arabian Homes for the Non-Rated Division championship and Shadow Lounge-Friendster in the Open Rated, as the Filsama Basketball League 7th Conference battles shift to high gear with the start of the best-of-three title playoffs at the NAI Juffali Compound court in Bawadi District here.
Arabian Homes sealed a title showdown with Friendster by crushing overmatched Airnet Maarej of Emil Akmad Bautista 115-84 in the third game Thursday during the 10th week of the FBL.
Friendster did its part on the other half of the knockout semifinal with an equally decisive 92-76 triumph over Al Tazaj in the second game Thursday.
In the Open Rated, Shadow Lounge set up a potentially explosive battle with Friendster after a hard 92-84 victory over a fighting Doel in the nightcap Friday.
It followed Shadow’s win by default over Wasalak Thursday and left only non-bearing games in the schedule prompting organizers to start the SL-Friendster title series.
After Shadow Lounge pulled away by 12 points in the third quarter it looked as though the game was SL for the taking until the Waleed Khatab-led Doel rebounded strongly in the fourth quarter and made it interesting to the delight of the underdog-loving crowd.
Diminutive guard Teddy Jamahali and the hard-playing Salman, who scored 20 and 17 points respectively, mocked the enemy defense to keep the points coming for Doel, which grabbed the initiative and was ahead by six, 80-74, with 3:15 to play.
To their credit SL coach Boy Corsega and his charges never panicked. From the last deadlock at 80 Shadow Lounge got clutch baskets from Roby David and Yutuc to seal the game with a 12-4 windup and the date with rival Friendster of Cris Melebo who will be looking for a double championship celebration with his two teams in the finals.
David who enjoyed another good shooting night led all scorers with 34 points. Bryan Adaya added 16 while Yutuc had 13 for Francis Magat’s Shadow Lounge.
In the race for the two championship berths in Inter-Company Bonafide three teams are mathematically still in contention namely E. A. Juffali Bros., Danube Himalaya and Fuddruckers S@H with respective records of 5-1, 4-2 and 4-3.
Juffali was idle but Danube and Fuddruckers won against Makati Foods 81-63 and Toyota Aurion 97-90 in games played Thursday and Friday.
Valencia scored 16 points, Mabutol tallied 14 and Gino Cilot contributed 12 for Danube with an offense that was even more fluid in the second half.
Though it was already out of the running Jimmy Abdullah Beltran’s Aurion squad gave its all against Fuddruckers, which banked on the trio of Nanding Unas (25 points), Rebulado 14 and Sabang 10 to get the win.
What had been expected to be good fight between Arabian Homes and Airnet turned out a cakewalk for Arabian Homes with Moymoy Bantilan, Fuentes, Cilot and Destreza presiding a deadly offensive that had their team racing to an early 16-1 lead.
Airnet did manage to close the gap, 51-44, at halftime but this only fired up Arabian Homes even more, using a paralyzing defense to put the game out of reach with a 30-point lead, 92-62, at the end of the third period.
Bantilan finished with 26 points, Fuentes canned in 21 while Cilot and Destreza each had 14.
