Defending champion Meralco clinched a quarterfinals seat after turning back sticky Barangay Ginebra, 82-73, for a third straight win in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup on Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Bolts, who closed their elimination round campaign with a 6-5 win-loss slate, weathered the Kings’ furious fourth quarter rally with timely defensive stops in a highly emotional closing stretch that saw Ginebra coach Tim Cone ejected.

“It’s a high-level game. It’s just in the end you can see the stops that we had. They started missing a couple of their shots, but it was quality game all the way,” Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said.

Chris Newsome scored 15 points and grabbed six rebounds, Chris Banchero had 14 markers while Cliff Hodge had 11 points and seven rebounds for Meralco. Bong Quinto and CJ Cansino fired 10 points each for the Bolts, who will await their fate in the playoffs whether they will land in the top four with a twice-to-beat advantage or advance to the next round with a handicap.

Meralco was up, 71-65, with seven minutes left before Ginebra rallied to tie it at 71 after a Scottie Thompson layup with 4:01 left in the game.

But it was the Kings’ last hurrah as they went scoreless in the next three and a half minutes that the Bolts exploited to pull away.

Cone was thrown out of the game after receiving a second technical foul with 32 seconds remaining for excessive complaining. The winningest PBA tactician with 25 titles was whistled for his first technical with 1:23 left.

Ginebra saw its three-game winning streak snapped to fall to a 5-3 card.

Scottie Thompson and Jamie Malonzo had 16 points each, Troy Rosario scored 14 while Japeth Aguilar and rookie RJ Abarrientos finished with 12 markers apiece.

The scores:

MERALCO (82) --- Newsome 15, Banchero 14, Hodge 11, Quinto 10, Cansino 10, Black 5, Rios 5, Almazan 4, Jose 4, Bates 4

GINEBRA (73) –-- Thompson 16, Malonzo 16, Rosario 14, J.Aguilar 12, Abarrientos 12, Holt 3, Cu 0, Gray 0, David 0

Quarters: 17-17, 37-37, 61-56, 82-73