MERALCO coach Norman Black described it best when he said their duel with NLEX was a game of runs.
Thanks to plenty of heroes, the Bolts had the last laugh against the Road Warriors last night.
Doing just enough to thwart their opponent’s repeated comeback bids, Meralco humbled NLEX 114-98 to get back on track in the PBA Governors’ Cup at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig.
Import KJ McDaniels dazzled with game-highs of 31 points and 21 rebounds, on top of four assists for the Bolts, while Allein Maliksi boomed in four three-pointers and wound up with 19 markers, six boards, and four dimes.
Chris Newsome added 18 points, five caroms, and eight feeds, while Aaron Black had 15 and three as Meralco halted a two-game slump, counting a 104-111 loss to TNT seven days ago, and improved to 4-3.
The Road Warriors failed to sustain the form they showed in a 116-112 triumph over Converge last Saturday and slipped to 5-3.
“Basketball is really a game of runs and you rarely see a team blow out a team for the entire game so sometimes you get a good run and you don’t really know exactly why,” Black said. “The other team figures it out and they come back and they do well. In the end, we were just able to get some stops. Allein hit some big shots for us, and KJ was really a dominant player, a force in the paint today that really helped us a lot. Newsome did well today.
“A lot of guys really contributed to the victory. We knew if we could just cut down on our turnovers and control the boards we will have a good chance of winning,” he added.
An Anjo Caram layup gave the Bolts their biggest lead at 37-16 at the 9:55 mark of the second quarter before Meralco settled for a 56-46 advantage at the half.
The Bolts still held an 87-71 spread heading into the final stanza before NLEX’s fourth quarter rally fell short.
The Road Warriors closed in on 84-90 on a Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser slam dunk with still 8:11 left.
