Meralco bolts to 2-1 semis series lead

Meralco came out with great energy and just dominated Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, 87-80, to take Game 3 for a 2-1 lead in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals Wednesday night at the Dasmarinas Arena in Dasmarinas, Cavite.   

Save for some scary moments in the last seconds of the game that saw the Gin Kings close in within five, the Bolts outworked their rivals for a second straight win.

“That last five minutes we shouldn’t do that. We’re up already even if it's… you know some of our other guys in the game were just floating, we’re not communicating, we can’t have that,” Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said.

“But in the first three quarters at least it’s a little bit sound. I think we can still improve on a lot of things. We gave them a couple of offensive rebounds at the start, there were a couple of open looks but generally, during the course of the game, we know we have to do that again for the next game.”

Game 4 is on Friday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Allein Maliksi finished with 16 points to lead the Bolts, who built a 17-point lead and kept the Gin Kings chasing throughout the game.

Chris Newsome had 14 points, six assists and four rebounds while Bong Quinto got 10 markers for Meralco.

The Bolts got their running game going with 17 fastbreak points, converted Ginebra’s 14 errors to 17 turnover points and tallied 17 second chance points.

The Gin Kings made one final push with under two minutes left with nine unanswered points to cut their deficit to 80-85 after Nard Pinto laid it in following a steal with 25 seconds left.

Alvin Pasaol missed two free throws on the other end giving Ginebra another chance to move closer. But LA Tenorio missed a long bomb and Dave Murrell missed his putback that could’ve brought the Gin Kings within one possession.

Jansen Rios sealed it for Meralco at the line.

Japeth Aguilar had 15 points and nine boards, Maverick Ahanmisi made 13 while Christian Standhardinger, who scored a career-best 41 points in Game 2, was limited to 10 markers and 10 boards.

Box scores:

MERALCO (87) --- Maliksi 16, Newsome 14, Quinto 10, Banchero 9, Hodge 9, Almazan 8, Caram 6, Bates 6, Torres 3, Pascual 2, Rios 2, Dario 2, Mendoza 0, Pasaol 0,

GINEBRA (80) --- J.Aguilar 15, Ahanmisi 13, Standhardinger 10, Tenorio 9,  Thompson 8, Pinto 6, Cu 5, Pessumal 5, Pringle 4, Onwubere 3, R.Aguilar 2, Murrell 0

Quarters: 31-18, 48-34, 72-59, 87-80