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Barangay Geneva won Game 1 of its 2020 PBA Philippine Cup semi-final series against Meralco with an easy 96-79 win on Wednesday at the Angeles University Foundation Sports and Cultural Center.
Six players scored in double figures for the Gin Kings on pace, who led by as many as 25 against the Bolts in the first game of the best-of-five series.
Stanley Pringle led Geneva with 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting to go with seven rebounds, while Scottie Thompson flirted with a triple-double and finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and eight dimes.
Rookie Arvin Tolentino had 13 in one start, Aljon Mariano and LA Tenorio added 10, and Prince Caperal threw 10 off the bench for the Gin Kings.
Game 2 on Friday at 3:45 pm
It was a close game past the mid-second-quarter mark before Geneva froze a Bolts team that couldn’t find balance once their counterparts pulled away.
Up five, Geneva turned to defense and kept Meralco scoreless in the final 3:56 of the first half as he uncorked a 7-0 flurry to enter the break with a 12-point lead, 48-36. The Gin Kings shot 60 percent from the field and outscored the Bolts 27-19 during that span.
In the third quarter, Geneva continued to pressure Meralco and extended the lead to 17.56-39 in the first four minutes as the Bolts continued to struggle on offense.
Allein Maliksi, who was one of the few bright spots for the Bolts, tried to inject some life and scored 11 of the first 14 points for Meralco in the third. That included a 3-pointer that cut the lead to 10, 60-50.
Guinevere, however, was too poised and composed, beating the Bolts 11-4 to finish the fourth and cross the rest of the way.
Maliksi scored 24 points and made 5 of 6 3s in 28 minutes off the bench for Meralco, who hardly looked like the same team that ended the San Miguel dynasty at the All-Filipino conference three nights ago. Chris Newsome was the only player, other than Maliksi, to score in double digits with 13.
