Meralco finished off NLEX, 100-81, to sweep its way to the PBA Season 48 Philippine Cup semifinals, Sunday night at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.
The Bolts gained enough separation late in the third quarter before pulling away for good in the following period en route to setting up a best-of-7 affair against Ginebra in yet another meeting between two of the league’s new-age rivals.
“Always hard and tough when we face Ginebra,” said head coach Luigi Trillo. “They’re well-coached, they have depth. Aside from the depth, they added some guys like [Ralph] Cu who are really great role players.
“It’s always a challenge with that. We know we have our hands full. We’re going to have to go back to the drawing board as a coaching staff. We’re excited.”
Chris Banchero showed the way with a season-high 23 points, seven rebounds, and six assists for a side that booked its seventh semis appearance in nine conferences — that, after a 3-5 start into the all-Filipino conference.
“It’s no secret that we got off to a slow start,” he said. “We got a bunch of vets in here. We know that a slow start isn’t the end of a conference.
“We want to be playing our best basketball going into the playoffs, and I think we’re doing that right now,” added the seasoned floor general.
Allein Maliksi and Cliff Hodge contributed 14 points apiece. Bong Quinto made 13 points off the bench while Chris Newsome and Raymond Almazan added 12 and 10, respectively, and combined for 16 of the team’s 49 rebounds.
But it wasn’t just their balanced attack that brought the win as the collective defense against Robert Bolick did wonders, too.
After being poured on with 48 in Game 1, Meralco limited the current BPC leader to just 18 points on 18 attempts from the floor.
“Robert Bolick is hard to defend,” said Trillo as the coaches assigned Banchero mainly on Bolick. “But I thought we did great in terms of our defense.”
Dom Fajardo backed him up with 15 points and six rebounds for the Road Warriors, who lost six of their last seven games to end the conference.
The Scores:
Meralco 100 – banchero 23, Hodge 14, maliksi 14, Quinto 13, Newsome 12, Almazan 10, Caram 5, Torres 5, Pasaol 2, Bates 2.
NLEX 81 – Bolick 18, Fajardo 15, Herndon 11, Rodger 10, Semerad 9, Amer 5, Marcelo 5, Valdez 5, Miranda 3, Nieto 0, Anthony 0.
Quarterscores: 27-26, 52-49, 76-70, 100-81.
