Leon Macklin had 31 points and nine assists as El Jaish posted an 84-71 win over Al Arabi in the Qatar Basketball League yesterday.
Al Arabi edged a close first quarter 21-20 but El Jaish soon caught up and nailed the match with some degree of comfort in the end.
Macklin was ably supported by Sammy Monroe who scored 20 points and Yousuf Mohamed who had 10. Remarkably, of the 84 points El Jaish scored, only 15 came from three-pointers.
El Jaish enjoyed an 80-61 lead in the final period, which proved the key in the end.
Narcellius Soyebo top-scored with 23 points for Al Arabi, while Edward O’Brien had 15 and Abdulla Abu-Faisal 13.
El Jaish scored 16 points from turnovers while Al Arabi had only eight. El Jaish also managed 14 second chance points, with Al Arabi posting nine.
In the second match of the day, Al Sadd thrashed Al Khor 90-64 with Anthony Raffa top-scoring for the winners with 23 and Deba Kone and Suliman Abdi contributing 20 and 19, respectively.
Al Sadd were off to a 20-5 lead in the first quarter to lay the foundations for their win and that was pretty much the end of the match as far as Al Khor were concerned.
For Al Khor, Ronald Rembert had 28 points, while Charles Abouo scored 15.
Today, Al Ahli play Al Gharafa at 5.30pm followed by a match between Al Shamal and Al Wakrah at 7.30.