Six seconds away from an upset win, the Meralco Bolts blew their chance away and let the TNT KaTropa join the march of the top seeds into the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Final Four at the Smart Araneta Coliseum Friday night.
The KaTropa pounced on a grievous in-bounds play by Chris Newsome in the last 6.1 seconds of regulation and salvaged a 104-96 win in overtime to set up a best-of-five semifinal showdown with the Barangay Ginebra Kings.
Game One is at 6:30 p.m. Sunday also at the Big Dome.
Ginebra certainly has the advatange with couples of days of rest and a better preparation at least in the series opener.
“We don’t really have a choice, but it’s better playingSunday than resting the rest of the conference,” said TNT coach Nash Racela.
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In salvaging the series versus Meralco, Racela said the biggest key was not losing hope.
“We knew we were down as we had a turnover before Meralco’s last play. Ang sabi lang namin we’ll not give up hanggang hindi tapos ang game. In the end, we wanted to force a turnover and we’re lucky it happened,” said Racela.
“And good thing for us they even fouled Jayson (Castro) and we’re able to force overtime,” he added.
Up at 89-88 with 6.1 seconds to go in regulations, the Bolts all had to do was to in-bound the ball and dribble the time away.
Newsome, however, turned the ball over to the utter shock of almost everybody in the venue.
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Castro picked up the ball and tied the count at 89-all on a split from the line with 5.1 ticks left.
In overtime, the Ka Tropa simply outmaneuvered the Kings to advance to the semis.
Castro actually split from the line but it was enough to send the game into OT where Joshua Smith and Ranidel de Ocampo took over to complete the win for the Texters.
Castro and Smith both piled up 31 points, with the massive TNT import also collaring 27 rebounds, to give the Texters a shot at the finals.
Smith and De Ocampo nailed back-to-back baskets to open the overtime, and the Ka Tropa kept the Bolts at bay the rest of the way.
Going down the drain was another solid game by sophomore playmaker Baser Amer who came through with 25 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals in a follow-up to his career-best 32-point outing in their Game Two victory.
Jared Dillinger came up with 20 points while Alex Stepheson contributed 15 markers and 12 boards.
With TNT suddenly hitting the wall in the second period, Meralco turned the game around, wiping out a 10-point deficit and seizing control going into the final half.
The Ka Tropa blasted from the opening block, 28-13, and led by 10, 29-19, on a hot 67-percent shooting in the first quarter before suffering a power outage in the next period, making only four of 23 attempts.
Amer went 5-of-6 from the field as the Bolts pounced on the Ka Tropa's second-quarter dry spell to grab the lead, 43-38, at halftime.
Amer outscored the entire TNT team, 13-9, in the second period.
Then Dillinger took over in the third, firing away 14 points as Meralco stretched its lead to 14 at 59-45 before carrying a 73-66 margin into the final canto.
