FORMER MVP Scottie Thompson eyes widened last night when he found himself all alone under the basket for an uncontested layup, probably wondering: Where is Meralco’s vaunted defense?

With Thompson typifying Ginebra’s poise when it mattered most, the Kings scored a 99-92 victory over the Bolts in Game 1 of their best-of-5 quarterfinals duel in the PBA Governors’ Cup at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.

Thompson’s fastbreak basket pushed Ginebra’s lead to 97-88 with 1:23 to go in a sequence that saw only three Meralco players getting down on defense—Chris Newsome, Cliff Hodge, Chris Banchero, and import Allen Durham.

Last Eight play moves to the Santa Rosa Multi-Sports Complex as Rain or Shine and defending champion TNT seek a 2-0 lead today when they tackle Magnolia and NLEX, respectively.

Kings coach Tim Cone said the combatants sized each other up in the opener of the race-to-3 battle and was glad his charges got the job done.

“It’s an interesting dynamic for us because we haven’t played Meralco in this conference yet. It’s kind of a feeling out process because we haven’t played them. Justin’s (Brownlee) never been against Nenad (Vucinic Bolts active consultant) and Luigi (Meralco coach). We have a bunch of (new) guys that have never played Meralco before,” Cone said. “So, it was really a feeling out process that I felt throughout the game. They’re trying to play their game. We’re trying to play ours.

“We came out on top but basically, we and Justin made more plays down the stretch so that was the key. It could have gone either way,” he added.

The second tiff is set tomorrow at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Brownlee scattered a game-high 29 points, to go with 13 rebounds and seven assists, while Thompson backed him up with 19 markers, five boards and five dimes.

Stephen Holt and Japeth Aguilar also had 14 and 10, respectively, for the Kings who redeemed themselves from a 99-103 overtime loss to the NLEX Road Warriors in their final group phase outing last Sunday.

The Bolts came off a 124-82 shellacking of the Terrafirma Dyip also in their last eliminations game six days back.

Ginebra zoomed to a 53-43 edge at the half that it stretched to as much as 66-51 on a Holt three-point play at the 6:52 mark of the third canto.

But Meralco razed the deficit to just 71-73 behind Hodge, Newsome, and Durham going into the final stanza.

Hodge led four other Bolts in double-figures with 23 points and five caroms while Newsome had 20 and four.

Durham, Banchero, and Bong Quinto also got 17, 11, and 10 markers, respectively, for Meralco.

With Cone saying his team and the Bolts are feeling each other, Game 2 should pose a clearer picture of who wants it more.