AL THORNTON proved to be the biggest thorn in San Miguel Beer’s gigantic collapse on Tuesday.
The Meralco import, who still nursed an injured right leg, led the Bolts’ electrifying comeback from 21 points down and helped Meralco to pull the rug from under the Beermen, 100-93, in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup at the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City.
The former National Basketball Association forward dished out another brave performance with 30 points and 12 rebounds and, more important, turned his heroic outing to a victory for NLEX, its second in six games.
“The players won this game for us. I’m glad we were able to bounce back and good thing San Miguel didn’t make their three-point attempts in the closing minutes,” Road Warriors Head Coach Boyet Fernandez said.
“I always tell the players to believe in themselves. In the end, we made stops and won the ball game for us,” Fernandez added.
Jonas Villanueva, Asi Taulava, Mark Borboran and Niño Canaleta were also instrumental in the Road Warriors’ comeback win, helping Thornton with clutch baskets down the stretch and pushed the Philippine Cup champion San Miguel deeper in the standings with 1-5 mark.
Taulava had 20 points, Villanueva added 15 markers, while Canaleta and Borboran each had a key three-pointer in the telling run of NLEX in the fourth quarter where the wards of Fernandez dominated the Beermen, 42-18.
It was a tough loss for San Miguel, which appeared to have the game in the bag early after erecting a 64-43 lead midway to the third before settling for a 75-58 spread entering the fourth.
The Beermen were still comfortably ahead at 85-73 before the Road Warriors unloaded a 13-0 assault capped by Borboran’s difficult undergoal stab to take the lead at 86-85, 4:07 left in the game.
Chris Lutz ended San Miguel’s long drought with a triple to reclaim the lead for the Beermen, 88-86, but Thorton and Villanueva joined hands for another 9-0 run to take a commanding 95-88 spread, 64 seconds remaining.
San Miguel’s three-point shooting turned sour at that point, as they missed six three-point attempts in a row before Arwind Santos nailed one, 91-95, 30.5 ticks left.
Villanueva and Thornton sealed the win with free throws to push NLEX a notch higher in the standings.
Arizona Reid paced the Beermen with 27 points while Santos added 20 markers. June Mar Fajardo had 10 markers for San Miguel but only two in the second half.
The Beermen shot 8-of-33 from the three-point zone.