Meralco caught Barangay Ginebra San Miguel on an off night to cruise to a lopsided 91-73 victory in the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup on Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The Bolts never trailed the whole match and even built an insurmountable 31-point lead with under four minutes left in the third canto to pick their second win in five games.
“We played well and we caught them a little bit off,” Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said.
Allein Maliksi had it his way in the field, finishing with 25 points, 11 in the third quarter, to pace Meralco as it arrested a two-game slide while handing the Gin Kings their first loss in three starts.
Maliksi knocked down a trey off a second possession to give Meralco a 71-40 advantage – its biggest of the ballgame – with only 3:59 left in the third quarter.
Meralco pounced on Ginebra’s atrocious field goal shooting in the first half to set the tone for the blowout.
The Gin Kings only had a combined nine field goals in the first two quarters, half of the Bolts’ total output.
Chris Newsome backed Maliksi with 19 points, six rebounds and four assists while Aaron Black got 12 markers and seven boards for the Bolts, who only had six turnovers while forcing Ginebra to commit 19 errors they turned to 26 turnover points.
The Gin Kings’ only significant fight in a rather terrible outing came in the beginning of the opening quarter when they tied the game at 4. Then it was all Meralco from there.
Maverick Ahanmisi had 14 points while Japeth Aguilar and Christian Standhardinger delivered 13 markers each for Ginebra.
Box scores:
MERALCO (91) – Maliksi 25, Newsome 19, Black 12, Mendoza 8, Banchero 5, Hodge 4, Quinto 4, Pasaol 4, Almazan 3, Caram 2, Rios 2, Pascual 2, Dario 1, Torres 0
GINEBRA (73) – Ahanmisi 14, Standhardinger 13, J.Aguilar 13, David 8, Onwubere 6, Malonzo 4, Tenorio 3, Pessumal 3, Gumaru 2, R. Aguilar 2, Pringle 2, Pinto 1, Cu 0
Quarters: 23-14, 46-27, 76-52, 91-73.
