Awesome Newsome

Meralco caught Magnolia on a bad shooting day in a 74–51 rout to power its playoffs drive in the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup Sunday at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.

Chris Newsome, who had a knee injury scare in the previous game, came in as if nothing happened leading the charge with 12 points, seven assists and eight rebounds for the Bolts’ second straight win for an even 5-5 win-loss record.

Defense keyed in Meralco’s drubbing of the Hotshots, who got buried by 25 points, 74-49, on a Diego Dario trey with 15 ticks left.

“It’s a bit of two things. In the first half, they only scored 21 points. I think we played good defense, the guys were on-point. And also they’re lacking two players. Not to take anything away from us. We played well defensively but they didn’t have (Jio) Jalalon and Calvin Abueva,” Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said as his team sent Magnolia reeling to a second straight loss in the franchise’s all-time lowest-scoring output.

“With that being said, also we’d want to take credit that the players all around did their roles.”

Raymond Almazan added a double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds while Chris Banchero made 11 points for the Bolts.

Meralco, however, had another injury concern after Aaron Black banged knees with James Laput early in the third quarter and did not return. Black grimaced in pain clutching his right knee and was helped out of the court.