The Meralco Bolts proved steadier in the clutch to eke out an 89-86 victory over San Miguel Beer and secure an automatic quarterfinals slot last 17 July in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Allein Maliksi scored a team high 18 points, Chris Newsome added 16 points and Aaron Black set aside his lamentations over the death of his paternal grandmother in the US for the moment for 15 points which he capped with a triple that made it 88-83, only 50 seconds left in the 4th.
CJ Perez's own shot from deep trimmed the Beermen's deficit to just two and, following a Maliksi charity, the win became official when Simon Enciso missed a step back trey try just before the final buzzer.
The win hiked Meralco's record to 6-4, good for fifth, with winless Terrafirma, the only remaining elimination game for the Bolts on Thursday.
Acting head coach Luigi Trillo, standing in for Norman Black, said they still need to win over the Dyip to firm up their place in the middle of the eight-team field advancing to the next round and to officially secure a best-of-three duel with the No. 3 seed.
"We need to focus and put all our efforts on Terrafirma. We know that it's not gonna be an easy game because, obviously, there's no pressure on them," stated Trillo.
"But if we win that (game) we cement what we wanted at this time, which is to be in the top six," added Trillo. "Wherever we are, three to six, at least it's not a twice-to-beat, it's a best-of-three, and that's all we could hope for."
Except for failing to stretch its league-best six-game winning streak and going to the last eight on a winning note the loss hardly mattered for SMB as it wound up the eliminations with a 9-2 slate and a sure win-once advantage over the No. 8 team in the quarters.
June Mar Fajardo typified the Beermen's intentions with game highs of 21 points and 12 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the conference. His fellow starters in CJ Perez, Marcio Lassiter and Enciso, aside from reliever Vic Manuel, scored at least 11 points each.
The game that had 12 lead changes and 11 deadlocks completely turned in Meralco's favor when the Bolts completely cranked up more effort on both ends when it really mattered most.
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