Mo Tautuaa of TNT charges into Cliff Hodge of Meralco during Monday night’s quarterfinal duel between both squads. —AUGUST DELA CRUZ
With a more involved offense and decent defensive, TNT KaTropa displayed why it is the favorite in its quarterfinal duel with Meralco in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
Starving their foes nearly harmless outputs in the first two periods, the Texters scooted away early, staved off a mild uprising by the Bolts and then pulled away for a 102-84 victory Monday night at Smart Araneta Coliseum to move within a win of booking a semifinal berth.
“I think offensively, we were blessed to have contributions coming from almost everybody,” rookie coach Nash Racela said after getting four players in twin digits. “That doesn’t normally happen.”
The Bolts got dumped into a huge hole early, scoring just eight points in the first 11 minutes before catching some fire in the third to make a game out of it somehow.
“Defensively, we were decent today,” Racela added. “We made it hard for Meralco to make their shots. But we’re expecting them to make a lot of adjustments [for the second game].”
Star also took a 1-0 lead in its quarterfinal series by crushing hapless defending champion Rain or Shine, 118-82, later in the night.
The Texters built so much momentum early that they didn’t have much difficulty rediscovering their rhythm in the fourth as they opened up leads of as big as 24 on the way to a series opening win.
“No one wins a best-of-three series by winning Game 1,” Racela said. “But of course, it’s good to get that [first win] out of the way and take a winning feeling going into Game 2.”
Jason Castro scored 25 points and Joshua Smith scattered 19 despite coming off the bench and playing limited minutes because of a bum stomach. He could have easily excused himself from the game, but opted not to.
“I wasn’t a hundred percent today, but I wasn’t going to let my teammates go out there by themselves,” Smith, a replacement for Donte Greene, said. “I just wanted to help them out.”