Meralco booked a semifinals seat after clobbering NLEX, 100-81, in Game 2 to complete a best-of-three Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup quarterfinals series sweep Sunday night at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

Chris Banchero lit the Bolts’ fourth quarter barrage with nine straight points, opening the flood gates for a double-digit separation that effectively took the fight out of the Road Warriors.

Meralco will face Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in the best-of-seven semis.

Banchero scored 14 of his 23 points in the final canto where the Bolts outscored the Road Warriors, 24-11.

The top guard also had seven rebounds and six assists while shouldering the tough task of defending the Road Warriors’ explosive scorer Robert Bolick, who was limited to only 18 points after pouring a career-best 48 markers in Game 1.

“Hats off to NLEX. You see what a great season they’ve had. They’re tied up there in terms of team standings, Robert Bolick is a hell of a player. I think it was that in the second half where we kind of outplayed them in terms of what we needed to do,” Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said.  

“You’ll see how close these quarters had been for us. The first half was nip-and-tuck.”

Protecting a seven-point lead after three quarters, Banchero strung nine of Meralco’s 13-5 bliz that ballooned its lead to 90-75 with 6:31 left.

Banchero again scored five consecutive points in the closing 10-6 run to finish off the Road Warriors for their fifth straight win since the elimination round.   

Cliff Hodge and Allein Maliksi scored 14 each, Bong Qunito had 13, Chris Newsome got 12 markers and nine boards while Raymon Almazan added 10 points and seven boards for the Bolts.

Bolick shot 6-of-18 and tried to get his teammates more involved in offense but little help especially in the fourth where he was held scoreless.

Dominic Fajardo had 15 markers while Rob Herndon and Richie Rodger got 11 and 10 points, respectively, for NLEX.

Box scores:

MERALCO (100) --- banchero 23, Hodge 14, maliksi 14, Quinto 13, Newsome 12, Almazan 10, Caram 5, Torres 5, Pasaol 2, bates 2

NLEX (81) –-- Bolick 18, Fajardo 15, Herndon 11, Rodger 10, Semerad 9, Amer 5, Marcelo 5, Valdez 5, Miranda 3, Nieto 0, Anthony 0

Quarters: 27-26, 52-49, 76-70, 100-81