For the Meralco Bolts, the Barangay Ginebra Kings is a mountain to climb. But a tough adversity the Gin Kings may have been in their past playoff battles, the Bolts are not to turn their back on their opportunity to play them.
"If we want to be a champion, we have to compete with the best; we have to beat the best. We love the opportunity," said Meralco skipper Chris Newsome.
And playing with a great resolve for 48 minutes, Newsome and his teammates clobbered the Gin Kings, 93-82, in the opener of their PBA Philippine Cup best-of-three quarterfinals face-off at the Smart Araneta Coliseum last 24 July.
Newsome, Aaron Black and Allein Maliksi led the way with at least 17 points each as the Bolts practically repeated their 90-73 conquest of the Kings in their elims duel and thus moved within a win of the semifinal round.
Loser in each of their five recent playoff showdowns, Meralco hopes to end its woes, going for the kill in Game Two on Friday over at the FilOil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
"The good thing about this series is we have five days to regroup, and we're actually a healthy team now," said acting Meralco coach Luigi Trillo.
The Bolts vowed to work hard to prepare for the next game where their mind idea "is to make them uncomfortable."
They did just that in the series kickoff, imposing their game and taking control most of the way en route to the comfortable 93-82 triumph.
With their defense holding and their offense running smoothly, the Bolts zoomed to a 53-43 lead at the half, pulled away further, 80-62, in the third and refused to slow down.
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