Meralco spoiled Christian Standhardinger’s 41-point career night with a 103-91 win over Barangay Ginebra San Miguel to even the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup semifinals best-of-seven showdown to one game apiece Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Veteran big man Raymond Almazan nailed back-to-back baskets midway through the fourth period to fuel the Bolts’ closing 15-4 scoring spurt for the series equalizer.
“(Bouncing back), its everything. If you go down 0-2… I think Game 1 is more important than Game 2 but if we lose, we’ll be down two. It’s just one game, we made it now into a best-of-five,” Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said.
Game 3 is on Wednesday at the Dasmariñas Arena in Cavite.
“We know that Ginebra is gonna be back. I think just looking at it, we really need to do some things defensively and offensively. I think we’re more aligned today but there are still things that we need to improve on. We know they’re gonna comeback we just have to be ready,” Trillo added.
Allein Maliksi missed all his three three-point attempts but made up for his cold outside shooting by going hard to the basket to finish with 25 points for the Bolts.
Chris Newsome added 20 points, Cliff Hidge had a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds while Chris Banchero scored nine of his 11 points in the fourth quarter including Meralco’s final basket with 28 seconds left to seal the deal.
In the third quarter, the Bolts squandered a 17-point lead, 60-43, as the Gin Kings sparked a huge run and outscored Meralco, 32-18, to take a 74-73 lead heading into the final canto.
The Bolts reclaimed the lead and broke open a slim, 88-87, advantage after Almazan hit a trey followed by a jumper to ignite the game-winning run.
Standhardinger shot 13-of-17 from the field for the biggest offensive output by a Ginebra local in the last two decades or since Mark Caguiao dropped 45 against Air21 in the 2006 Philippine Cup.
Maverick Ahanmisi got 14 points while Stanley Pringle, who was the hero in the Gin Kings’ 99-88 Game 1 win, added 14 points and eight boards.
Scottie Thompson had a quiet outing with just six points and a solitary rebound while rookie Ralph Cu added a paltry six points on one-of-five shooting.
Meralco got off to a great start in the first half, showing great energy right from the get-go to set the pace of the game.
Maliksi showed the way in the first two quarters with 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting for the Bolts, who shot 53 percent from the field to take a 55-42 advantage entering the halftime break.
