By Ivan Saldajeno
MANILA—Players from the Bataan Risers took home victories in the side events of the first MPBL All-Stars festivities at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay on Saturday night.
The pair of Pamboy Raymundo and Byron Villarias won the Two-Ball Competition, while Gary David reigned in the Three-Point Shootout.
Raymundo and Villarias needed only 43.1 seconds to complete the Two-Ball course, similar to that of the NBA Shooting Stars Challenge, besting nine other duos.
On the other hand, David smoked hot in the finals of the shootout, making 23 out of the 34 possible points to beat first round topnotcher James Martinez.
The Bulacan hotshot failed to duplicate his 23-point bomb in the preliminaries as he only made 16 in the final round, fizzling out in the end.
San Juan's John Wilson finished second in the final shootout with 17.
Raymundo and Villarias will share a PHP50,000 paycheck for the Two-Ball win, while David took home another PHP50,000 as the three-point king.
With the Risers not sending a representative in the Slam Dunk Contest, Makati Skyscraper David Carlos dominated the competition and showed why he is the number one dunker in the Philippines right now.
Carlos started out with a simple one-handed 360-degree dunk good enough for 46 points, but he put on a show in Round 2 with a dunk over three people that earned him a perfect 50 and a spot in the finals.
However, fellow finalists Chris Menguez, King Destacamento, and Carlo Escalambre failed to achieve impressive dunks, paving the way for Carlos, who tried to do an elbow dunk over one guy but instead settled for a tomahawk, to win the dunk contest.
Carlos won PHP50,000 in the process too.
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