After a month of hard court actions, 10 teams are down too four as the semifinal matches of the 1st PROBAC/LNA7 Basketball Invitational Tournament begins tonight at the West Ngros University gym.

Tournament leader Toyota-Bacolod will try to duplicate over Watchmen Daily Journal in the first game followed by the match-up between Boston Finance and Sun Cellular.

Toyota, which earlier escaped Ink Crème in the quarterfinals, will have their hands full against the run and gun type of game from the Watchmen.

In their last encounter, Toyota was able to hold on a 9-point lead towards the final seconds of the match to outsmart the younger Watchmen squad, 108-99.

However, Watchmen was able to scare Toyota in the first half as they control the game’s momentum to lead the half, 40-42. But a 47-23 blast in the third by behind Rico Cabatu’s 26 points, including four treys, gave the Toyota a 22-point lead at the end of the period.

Players to watch out for Toyota are Cabatu, Keempee Lagrason, Allan Jaena, Bernard Suante, Jojo Pastias and Amit Teruel, while Watchmen is expected to rely on their shooters Pril Gacho, Taboy Corriente, Jun-Jun Alisbo, Ceasar Tan, Elmer Antonio and Donald Quilantang.

Meanwhile, Boston will also try to post a more convincing win over Sun Cellular after they ended their last match-up with a slim 95-94 victory.

In that encounter, Yan Dy was the man of the hour as he scored 22 points to lead Boston, while Mars Echarri tallied similar output for Sun Cellular.

Among those expected to explode for Boston are Dy, Jerald Abrot, Matt Delis and John Villaroman, while JR Fernandez, and Mars and Patric Echarri for Sun Cellular.

Winners of the semifinal matches will advance to the best-of-three finals to start tomorrow evening.*

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