THE sparse crowd that showed up in an expected dogfight was already heading to the exits with Meralco leading pacesetting NorthPort by a mile—only to be roused by an electrifying play last night.
Using his blinding speed, Bolts star Chris Newsome left Batang Pier big man William Navarro in the dust, driving to the right baseline and soaring for a thundering left-handed slam dunk.
Sparked by a fiery second-half surge, Meralco clobbered NorthPort 111-94 for its second straight win in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.
Newsome’s dunk ignited a big roar from the Bolts’ faithful and more importantly pegged an insurmountable 103-87 edge with 4:02 to go that all but sealed a fitting follow-up to a 105-91 rout of the NLEX Road Warriors last Friday and perked up their mark to 6-3.
The Batang Pier crashed back to earth after pulling the rug from under the fancied Ginebra Kings 119-116 Wednesday last week and dropped to 7-2, still good for the top spot in the mid-season tourney.
There was little to no secret to Meralco’s big triumph—they locked down the usually fiery NorthPort side, according to Bots coach Luigi Trillo.
“First of all, NorthPort is playing really good basketball. They deserve every win; they took down a lot of quality teams like Eastern and Ginebra. Like some of the other coaches said, they are the real deal,” Trillo said. “I think tonight we played better defensively. We know this team can score the ball. They have guys like (Joshua) Munzon, (Arvin) Tolentino, and Navarro.
“Their import also is a perfect fit for them but I thought our bench was all-around coming in and helping out. This is one of those games where even our bigs helped out with quality contributions,” he added.
Import Akil Mitchell unleashed a game-high 30 points laced with 13 rebounds and three assists for Meralco while Chris Banchero also shone with 15 markers, two boards, and three dimes. Newsome also had 15 and two for the Bolts.
Meralco raced to a 54-44 advantage at the half and added it to 82-69 going into the final canto.
A Newsome three-pointer gave the Bolts their biggest lead 109-87 with 2:39 remaining.
Reinforcement Kadeem Jack showed the way for the Batang Pier with 29 points and 14 caroms while Tolentino added 19 and three.
Munzon and Navarro also contributed 12 and 11 markers, respectively, for NorthPort.
Now with nearly an intact roster, Meralco is out for a final push in the eliminations.