Juan GDL celebrates birthday with Tokyo Z breakthrough win in B League

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino import Juan Gomez de Liaño celebrated his birthday in Japan in the best way possible — with his team's first win of the season on Friday.

After a grueling 0-13 start, Gomez de Liaño and the Earthfriends Tokyo Z finally found themselves in the win column after routing the Ehime Orange Vikings, 98-65.

Tokyo flashed dominance as they never trailed in the game for a wire-to-wire victory.

The Earthfriends flashed dominance in the transition game with 25 big fastbreak points.

They also used their stingy defense to their advantage, scoring 27 points off of 15 turnovers.

Gomez de Liaño scored seven points in the victory. He also had four assists, one steal and one rebound in quality minutes as a starter.

Joshua Crawford paced the Earthfriends in the win with 29 points and 13 rebounds.

Tokyo Z aim to make it a winning streak when they face Ehime anew Saturday afternoon.