TNT’S young guns carried most of the brunt as the Tropang Giga beat NorthPort 102-92 yesterday to assure themselves of top eliminations honors in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Don Honorio Ventura State University Gym in Bacolor, Pampanga.
Prized rookie Mikey Williams again showed the way for TNT with 29 points while Kib Montalbo, the 11th overall pick two years ago, backstopped him with a career-high 22 as they mostly led and sustained a second half charge that totally put their team out of the Batang Pier’s clutches.
The Tropa notched their third straight win for a 9-1 record overall. Even if they lose their last elimination round game against Alaska on Saturday only former victim Meralco, currently at 5-2, could hope to tie them at the top.
Such a scenario would give TNT the top spot due to the winner-over-the-other rule and give it a win-once advantage over the No. 8 team in the quarterfinals.
The last time TNT emerged as eliminations topnotcher was in the 2013 edition of the same tournament it went on to win a third straight crown.
TNT coach Chot Reyes was simply glad over the way his relatively new acquisitions, led by Montalbo, continued to show improvement, this time enabling him to give Jayson Castro and Roger Pogoy more rest.
“Kib has been putting in the work in practice. Extra shots, spending time in the weights room, extra conditioning, I think is showing in the basketball court,” said Reyes.
“But not only Kib, even the other guys who are on the bench at different times. In the end that’s the kind of team we want to build,” added Reyes. “We want to make sure we have guys we can count on, who can deliver, step in when certain players are defended well or not making their shots. Hopefully, we can just continue that.”
The loss cut short NorthPort’s three-game winning run and left the team with an even 4-4 slate.
Paolo Taha paced the Batang Pier with 20 points and Jamie Malonzo added 15, but usual top scorer Robert Bolick was held to just 12 points, on 3-of-16 field shooting, after bearing the brunt of TNT’s defensive scheme that stymied him from getting any real rhythm going.
After missing his first eight shots from the field, Bolick boomed in a triple to knot the count at 49-all, but that third and last deadlock proved to be brief in the face of TNT’s steady barrage.
Williams scored 11 of his points and Montalbo 10 of his during the third period as the Tropa, who trailed by 22-32 early in the second quarter, took a 76-64 lead into the fourth canto.
With Williams and Montalbo hardly letting up and not one among the Batang Pier showing any consistency the difference even got stretched to a high of 100-83.
