TNT KaTropa went one up over the Meralco Bolts in their best-of-three Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup quarterfinal series, beating the latter, 102-84, in Game One yesterday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
A battle of teams that finished fourth and fifth place, respectively, at the end of the elimination round, the KaTropa gave their tournament push a favor by taking the opener to move a win away from advancing to the next round.
TNT went about it by making a quick run at the start of the contest and just fended off every attempt of the Bolts to rally back the rest of the way with Jayson Castro and import Joshua Smith leading the way.The two teams had a brief feeling-out period to open the first quarter, tied at 6-all in the first four minutes before Mr. Castro and TNT made the move to pull away.
TNT went on a 15-0 run in the next four minutes to lead, 21-6. But Meralco made a mini-run to close out the quarter to narrow its deficit to 12 points at the end of the opening canto, 25-13.
In the second period, the Bolts stepped up their defense but the KaTropa still managed to find ways to stay ahead at the half as Mr. Castro, with help from Mo Tautuaa and Mr. Smith, buoyed their team to a 42-27 edge by halftime.
Meralco carried over its spirited fight to start the third period, led by Jared Dillinger and Baser Amer, and was rewarded accordingly as it was able to cut down TNT’s lead to just five points, 44-39, with eight minutes to go.
Like in the first two quarters, however, TNT would once again separate itself behind Mr. Smith and RR Garcia to maintain a considerable separation at the end of the third, 69-59.
Messrs. Smith, Garcia and Castro continued to be on tear in the payoff period, helping their team to a 15-4 run to widen its gap to 19 points with seven minutes to go in the match.
The Bolts tried to rally back but the KaTropa were unrelenting and coasted to the victory.
Mr. Castro finished with 25 points, six rebounds and seven assists to lead the way for TNT while Mr. Smith had 19 markers. Mr. Tautuaa had 13 points and eight rebounds.
Chris Newsome led Meralco with 21 points with Messrs. Amer and Dillinger scoring 14 and 12 points, respectively.
Bolts import Alex Stepheson only had nine points but had 16 rebounds.
“Today offensively we were blessed to get contributions from a lot of people. It really helped us a lot. Defensively we were decent, enough to limit Meralco’s offense. But we are expecting them (Bolts) to make adjustments come the next game,” said TNT coach Nash Racela after their Game One win.
Game Two of the TNT-Meralco series happens tomorrow at 7 p.m. following the second game of the best-of-three series between the Star Hotshots and Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, which were to play their opener later last night.
Meanwhile, quarterfinal games today also at the Smart Araneta Coliseum will see the San Miguel Beermen against the Phoenix Petroleum Fuel Masters at 4:15 p.m. and the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings versus GlobalPort Batang Pier at 7 p.m.
For finishing first and second, respectively, at the end of the eliminations, the Kings and Beermen hold twice-to-beat advantages over their opponents.