NLEX survived a big scare—thanks to Sean Anthony’s steady free-throw shooting at crunchtime—to edge Meralco, 93-91, on Tuesday in the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Anthony cooly sank the two pressure-packed charities off Jared Dillinger’s foul with 8.8 seconds remaining to peg what turned out as the final score and lift the Road Warriors to their fourth win in six games.
“We’re happy to get our two wins against our sister teams,” NLEX Head Coach Boyet Fernandez said. “I thought our defense held up. It made the difference.”
The Road Warriors have now won back to back to find themselves trailing leader San Miguel Beer 5-1 and second-placers Alaska and Rain or Shine, which tote identical 4-1 cards.
Jonas Villanueva also played a key role for NLEX in the seesaw match that had 16 lead changes and six deadlocks. Villanueva buried a three-pointer to give the Road Warriors an 88-84 lead and scored anew on a gutsy drive in the final 1:24.
But the Bolts, who rolled to their sixth loss in seven games, simply refused to surrender, with Gary David scoring five straight points, including a trey that gave them an 89-88 lead with 9.8 seconds left in the game.
But the breaks went to NLEX’s favor after that, with Anthony nailing the game winners from the foul line.
Asi Taulava topscored for NLEX with 22 points, while Anthony and Villanueva added 19 and 17 points, respectively.
Rookie Chris Newsome led the Bolts with 21 points, while David added 19 markers.