For Newsome, winning is everything

Meralco doesn’t mind seeing an opposing player score above 40.

What’s important for the Bolts is to end up on top when the final buzzer sounds.

For the second time in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup playoffs, Meralco allowed a rival player to list a career-best.

The Bolts again spoiled it.

Barangay Ginebra San Miguel forward Christian Standhardinger saw his personal-high 41 points go down the drain after Meralco ran away with a 103-91 victory in Game 2 to tie the Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals series on Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

“Basketball is a team sport. There are five guys on the floor, and it comes down to how you use and utilize those pieces. We’re OK with letting one guy go off if that means that everybody else’s cold and doesn’t have their rhythm because, at the end of the day, all we need is the win,” Bolts top guard Chris Newsome said.

Standhardinger was the lone Gin Kings player who had above 20 scoring output as his usual Ginebra support cast struggled in form.

Big man Japeth Aguilar only had seven points while Scottie Thompson and rookie Ralph Cu only had six each.

In the best-of-three quarterfinals, Meralco saw NLEX guard Robert Bolick drop an amazing career-high 48 points but it rained on his parade by taking the series opener which the squad eventually swept for an eighth playoffs meeting with Ginebra since 2016.

“At the end of the game, we’re the ones that prevailed and we did our job despite how many points our opponent had. That’s the main thing, it’s team basketball for us and we’re doing what we need to do as far as game planning goes to get the win for the team,” Newsome, who had 20 points said.

Meralco coach Luigi Trillo didn’t mind Standhardinger reaching that many points.

“PBA has a lot of good players. You give New a chance to score 30, he’s gonna score 30. Stan is the same way he’s built the same way.

“I’m sure Ginebra has a game plan, they want to take some things from us. We have a game plan too. You can see Standhardinger’s a load but proud of the way our guys fought with their bigs,” the mentor said.

The Bolts brace for a tougher Game 3 on Wednesday at the Dasmariñas Arena in Cavite.