The Meralco Bolts ended their elimination round campaign with a hard-earned 118-116 overtime win over the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters last night in the 38th PBA Commissioner’s Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.
The Painters clawed back from double-digit deficits and even had the chance to win the game in regulation but Beau Belga’s potential game-winning triple failed to hit the mark as time ran out.
A slight commotion occurred after Belga got entangled with Meralco’s Mark Cardona after the attempt.
Eric Dawson once again displayed his offensive prowess by firing a game-high 50 points. Cardona scored 19, while Reynel Hugnatan and Jay-arr Reyes each had 10 points for the Bolts who finished the eliminations with seven wins and seven losses.
Bruno Sundov finished with 31 markers, Jeff Chan tallied 18, while Paul Lee and Gabe Norwood each 16 markers.
The Painters finished the eliminations with a 10-4 (win-loss) record.
The Alaska Aces (11-3) and the Painters will both have twice-to-beat incentives against their lower-ranked foes after a one-two finish in the eliminations.
Alaska will play the eighth-seed Air21 Express in the quarterfinals.
The final quarterfinal pairings have been finalized regardless of the outcome of the encounter between the Talk N Text Tropang Texters and the Petron Blaze Boosters. The game was still being played as of this writing.
Top two seeds Alaska and Rain or Shine will be twice-to-beat against the Air21 Express and the Barangay Ginebra Kings, respectively.
The Boosters will play the Texters, while the Bolts will take on the defending champions San Mig Coffee Mixers in a best-of-three series.
Meanwhile, the Kings have beefed up their lineup after they acquired streak-shooter Josh Urbiztondo from the Barako Bull Energy Colas in exchange of Keith Jensen.
BOX SCORES
MERALCO (118)- Dawson 50, Cardona 19, Reyes 10, Hugnatan 10, Manuel 9, Buenafe 6, Artadi 6, Salvacion 5, Hodge 3, Ross 0.
RAIN OR SHINE (116)- Sundov 31, Chan 18, Lee 16, Norwood 16, Tiu 11, Cruz 9, Arana 5, Rodriguez 4, Ibanes 4, Matias 2, Belga 0, Quinahan 0. QUARTERSCORES: 34-26, 62-48, 86-80, 110-110, 118-116.