MERALCO veteran forward Cliff Hodge’s eyes widened after seeing Allen Durham streaking during a fastbreak attack and deftly threw the ball for an alley-oop layup that the Bolts import handily put in last night.
Foiling their foes’ fourth quarter rally, undermanned Meralco smothered Terrafirma 107-91 to get back on track in Group A of the PBA Governors’ Cup at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.
Durham pointed to Hodge after the basket, acknowledging the nifty assist for a basket that made it 100-85 and practically sealed it for the Bolts despite the Dyip’s comeback try.
Converge seeks a second straight win when it tangles with NorthPort today in Group A while TNT faces Magnolia in Group B at the same venue.
Without Meralco active consultant Nenad Vucinic and key players Chris Newsome (sprain), Raymond Almazan (back), and Aaron Black (knee), coach Luigi Trillo said his charges simply brought their A-Game to redeem themselves from a 73-93 loss to the TNT Tropang Giga Thursday last week and rose to 2-1 for a share of the group lead with the Converge FiberXers and TNT.
Terrafirma failed to rebound from a 93-112 setback at the hands of the Batang Pier last Friday and dropped to 0-3.
“It’s coach Nenad’s system, he’s not here. He’s not feeling well but he’s teaching us a lot of things defensively and offensively. Tonight, we played a hard game, and we wanted AD (Durham) to get in shape a little bit and he found his groove and habang tumatagal, AD is getting in shape,” Trillo said. “I like the 24 assists. The ball was moving,
“I think we also did well in rebounding 51-31. So, I think those were certain keys in this game,” he added.
Durham notched a double-double of 23 points and 12 rebounds, on top of three assists while Bong Quinto bucked a left knee contusion and chipped in 22 markers and three boards.
Chris Banchero also had 17 points, three caroms and five dimes while rookie CJ Cansino and Allein Maliksi ha 16 and 12, respectively, for the Bolts.
Meralco came out with guns blazing and took a 56-43 advantage at the half and maintained a 79-67 edge entering the final 12 minutes.
A Paolo Hernandez three-pointer pulled the Dyip to within 84-90 with 6:46 to go but Meralco went on a 17-2 windup capped by an Anjo Caram free throw that pegged a 107-86 count–the Bolts’ biggest lead–only 1:24 left.
Stanley Pringle paced Terrafirma with 19 points, five rebounds, and six feeds while reinforcement Antonio Hester had 18 and eight.
Rookie Hernandez contributed 15 markers for the Dyip.
