JAKARTA (Asian Games 2018) – In today’s trio of games of the 18^th Asian Games 2018, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan all claimed victories over their opponents.

The Philippines tipped off the action for Group D with an impressive and convincing win over Kazakhstan, 96-59. Stanley Pringle had solid national team debut with 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 assists. The Philippines also had Christian Standhardinger who scored in double-digits with 15 points and 5 rebounds.

Korea shots the lights out in their 108-73 win over Mongolia, claiming the highest point total so far in the Men’s Basketball event. Ilyoung Heo shot 6/9 from downtown for a team-high 20 points while Ricardo Ratliffe was slightly behind with 19 points down in the post. Mongolia shot a decent 11/26 (42%) from beyond the three-point line, but Korea over powered that with 15/34 (44%) of their own long range sniping.

Qatar and Japan was one of the more evenly matched games of the day, with Japan being able to outlast their opponent in the final quarter to win 82-71. Qatar closed into within one point with less than 6 minutes remaining, but Japan blasted off to a 13-3 run to close the game.

Twenty-two-year-old Keita Imakura scored 8 of his 14 points in the game-sealing run by Japan, going 5/5 from the free throw line. Takuya Hashimoto led Japan with 22 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists to counter a big game from Qatar’s Tanguy Ngombo who had 36 points and 5 rebounds.

 FIBA