The Meralco Bolts overcame a late Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings run to escape with an 87-80 win in Game 3 of the PBA Philippine Cup semifinals on Wednesday night at the Dasmariñas Arena in Dasmariñas, Cavite.
Comfortably ahead at 83-66 with over six minutes left, the Gin Kings stunned the Bolts with a massive 9-2 run behind Nard John Pinto and Von Pessumal to cut the deficit to 75-85.
The Gin Kings went on with their run as LA Tenorio drilled a three-pointer and Pinto connected on a fastbreak layup, trimming the deficit further to 80-85 with 24 seconds left.
Barangay Ginebra still had their last chance to pull even closer after two missed freebies by Meralco’s Alvin Pasaol, but Tenorio misfired on a triple before the Bolts sealed the win with two free throws from Jansen Rios.
Allein Maliksi top-scored with 16 points, including three three-point conversions, while Chris Newsome and Kier John Quinto contributed 14 and 10 points, respectively, as the Bolts took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Bolts head coach Luigi Trillo said the last five minutes of Game 3 should serve as a lesson to them in terms of protecting their lead against the heavily shorthanded Gin Kings.
“Those last five minutes, we should not do that. We were already ahead, but our other players were just floating and not communicating, but the first three quarters are a little sound,” Trillo said.
“I guess we can still improve on a lot; we gave them some offensive rebounds, we gave them some open looks, but generally, during the course of the game, we know we have to do that again for the next game,” he added.
Japeth Aguilar led the way for the Gin Kings with 15 points and nine rebounds; Maverick Ahanmisi added 13 markers; and Christian Standhardinger had a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds.
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