Parks’ Nagoya bounces back against Hiroshima in B.League rematch

Bobby Ray Parks, Jr. again saw limited action as his Nagoya Diamond Dolphins came away with its first victory of the 2021-2022 Japan Professional Basketball League (B.League) season with an 87-77 win over the Hiroshima Dragonflies at the Dolphins Arena on Sunday.

The Filipino-American Parks, who is continuing to recover from a muscle strain that caused him to miss his team’s season opener last week, logged just over 11 minutes of play, finishing with just one point, one rebound, one assist and one steal.

But teammate Cody Clarke came up big with 21 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and four steals and Scott Eatherton chipped in with 17 to lead Nagoya to its first win in four games.

Hiroshima won the first meeting between the teams, 98-90, on Saturday. This was their first loss of the season, with the Dragonflies dropping down to 3-1.

Eatherton carried the load early, scoring 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting in the first quarter as the Dolphins took a 24-14 lead. But Hiroshima’s Charles Jackson turned in a dominant performance in the second period, leading the Dragonflies back to within one, 39-38, at the half.

In the third, Nagoya waxed hot from beyond the arc as Clarke, then Yutaro Suda, then Clarke again knocked down three unanswered three-pointers to turn a one-point deficit into a 48-40 lead.

They tried to hold off the Dragonflies but the pesky Hiroshima team came back to within two, 65-63, in the fourth quarter.

But it was again Nagoya’s outside shooting that sparked a Dolphins rally as back-to-back threes from Clarke and Tenketsu Harimoto kickstarted a 16-4 run capped by more triples from Harimoto and Suda, 81-67, with just 2:42 remaining.

Parks will be expected to play a bigger role for his team once he is healthy. In his most recent campaign in the PBA, he topped the statistical points race from the elimination round to the semifinals, with averages of 22.5 points, 8.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game.

Nagoya will take on the Toyama Grouses for their next assignments on October 16 and 17.

—JMB, GMA News