NorthPort rolled to a 97-75 victory over Terrafirma for a rousing start in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup Saturday night at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

Fueled by the gains of their playoffs run in the previous conference, the Batang Pier were relentless, anchored by a near triple-double outing by Arvin Tolentino.

The Commissioner’s Cup Best Player of the Conference posted 19 points on a 6-of-13 field goal shooting while dishing out 12 assists to go with eight rebounds.

He added a steal and a block to fill an impressive stats line to help NorthPort begin their all-Filipino campaign with a bang.

“There’s an X on my back. Because whenever a player wins an award, you’ll have that target (on your back),” Tolentino said.

The forward shared that he’s trying to improve on other aspects of his game especially in giving his teammates opportunities to score.

“I’m working on that during practice, sharing the ball. Making sure that I get a good read of the defense. I can’t rely on my scoring alone. I’m pretty sure opposing teams will try to check that. So, I really have to do better in moving the ball and reading the defense,” Tolentino said after accounting for the bulk of his team’s 27 dishes.

Tolentino had plenty of help with Will Navarro coming off the bench to deliver a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds, Joshua Munzon had 15 points while Sidney Onwubere and Allyn Bulanadi added 10 points each for the Batang Pier, who reached the semifinals of the last tournament after topping the elimination round.

“We had a great ball movement in this game. We had 27 assists and we hope we could capitalize on that heading into our next games,” NorthPort assistant coach Rensy Bajar said.

The Batang Pier got off to a hot start and were in front since trailing 6-8.

NorthPort led as many as 24 after Munzon scored off a layup for an 85-61 advantage with 6:13 remaining in the game.

Terrafirma absorbed a second straight loss — another excruciating blowout — after a debut win.

CJ Catapusan scored 16 points and Kevin Ferrer had 15 points for the Dyip. Louie Sangalang and Brent Paraiso added 10 each.

The scores:

NORTHPORT (97) --- Tolentino 19, Navarro 18, Munzon 15, Bulanadi 10, Onwubere 10, Cuntapay 8, Yu 6, Nelle 6, Flores 3, Taha 2, Miranda 0, Tratter 0, Nava 0

TERRAFIRMA (75) --- Catapusan 16, Ferrer 15, Sangalang 10, Paraiso 10, Nonoy 9, Melecio 3, Ramos 3, Pringle 2, Hernandez 2, Romeo 2, Olivario 2, Zaldivar 1, Hanapi 0

Quarters: 24-13, 47-38, 70-58, 97-75