September 17, 2017

Maliksi makes impact in debut to help Blackwater grab last quarterfinal seat

BLACKWATER realized an immediate goal Sunday, with its efforts helped along by a costly mental lapse from a key GlobalPort player.

The Elite used a torrid three-point shooting and some key plays down the stretch to claim a 118-107 victory over the Batang Pier and complete the PBA Governors Cup quarterfinals cast at the Ynares Center in Antipolo.

Allein Maliksi scored 22 points in his very first game for his newest team and Henry Walker flirted with a triple double to pace the Elite, who mainly employed a 15-for-31 clip from beyond the arc in pulling away from a tight opening quarter and into two 21-point leads.

And when GlobalPort threatened to make a tight game of it in the fourth quarter, Blackwater still had something left in the stretch to come out with its fifth win in 10 games and solidify its hold on eighth spot.

That left the Elite's closest chasers, Alaska and GlobalPort, each toting a 3-7 slate, with no chance of catching up with just one game left in their eliminations schedule.

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The seeding could go a notch higher but would still carry with it a twice-to-win handicap over a top two-ranked team in the next round. But Blackwater will cross that bridge when it gets there.

"The pre-game instructions was to make it simple, avoid any complications and that would have happened had we lost today," said Elite coach Leo Isaac, adding they are still going to go all out in their final eliminations game against Rain or Shine on Saturday.

"To further improve our standings, in case there are some more upsets among the teams above us," stated Isaac. "By our calculations kasi, baka may tsansang mag-No. 7.

"But our primary goal has been to win as many games in the eliminations and even if we're now qualified we're still going to do our very best to win over Rain or Shine on Saturday."

It marked only the second time in its first nine conferences with the league that Blackwater made it past the eliminations since last year's Philippine Cup and partly brought about when Terrence Romeo got thrown out at the final 5:01 mark of the second period.

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"Malaking bagay iyon," said Isaac of Romeo's ejection due to a flagrant foul-Penalty 2 he incurred for throwing the ball at Walker.

"Of course, we had Romeo in our radar in our preparations," added Isaac. "By the time he was ejected he already had 13 points. If he didn't commit that F2 he would have been a big problem."

Murphey Holloway and Stanley Pringle tried to pick up the slack with 28 and 27 points, respectively, with the latter also hauling down 23 rebounds.

With Sean Anthony helping out, the Batang Pier even managed to come clawing back from several 21-point deficits to within six, the last at 107-113, with still 90 seconds left.

Blackwater's poise re-surfaced, however, with JP Erram coming up with a baseline jumper off a broken play and Roi Sumang burying a triple that iced the game.

Walker finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds, nine assists, five steals and as many blocks with Sumang adding 21 points, Mike Digregorio 16, Dave Marcelo 13 and Erram 11.