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Focused Tigers overwhelm Bolts

Finally free of off-court distractions, the Powerade Tigers buckled down to work and outplayed the Meralco Bolts, 94-82, last night to nail their second straight win in the PBA Commissioner's Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.

Now that they know that swingman Marcio Lassiter isn't going anywhere, at least until the end of the conference, the Tigers shook off the rust of a nine-day lay-off and played exceptional ball in the second half against the Bolts, getting their running game in full swing by playing good halfcourt defense.

It was a good all-around effort that had Coach Bo Perasol making an indirect plea to stop trying to fix something that didn't need to be fixed.

"Sabi ng acting governor namin (Ronald Asuncion) we have to win the championship," Perasol said. "So we have to do that. I don't think any tinkering of the team will help that. We just make sure that we are toeing the company line that we're here to win a championship. It's a tall order, but we know that if are going to just be decent again on defense like we did today, I don't think we will have any problem going into any game."

With the score knotted up at 68 at the end of three periods, the Tigers poured it on defensively in the fourth, forcing the Bolts into seven turnovers and limiting them to only 14 points on 4-for-19 shooting. The Bolts' new import Earl Barron, who came in to replace Jarrid Famous, typified their struggle as he was limited to only one point over the last 12 minutes after scoring 21 through the first three quarters.

The Bolts actually moved ahead to open the fourth after Mark Macapagal's triple made it 71-68. But the Tigers clamped down on defense and dropped a 15-2 bomb to surge ahead, 83-73, with only 5:42 left. Meralco would get no closer than eight points the rest of the way as the Bolts fell to 2-2.

Meralco had no answer for Powerade's zone defense, which was ably anchored by Dwayne Jones. The NBA veteran finished the night with a game-high six blocks as he more than held his own against Barron. The seven-foot Barron outscored Jones 22-15, but took 30 shots and got to the line only three times.

Gary David topscored for the Tigers with 29 points, Lassiter added 19 and JV Casio 14 as Powerade's Big Three got the job done on the offensive end to complement Jones' dominance on defense.

"I think the presence of very good offensive players in our line-up will really tell the way we play offense," Perasol said. "But the question again is how we will make stops when this is necessary. They understand. They have the confidence to go up against any team. We just have to make sure that we also understand how to make wins."

Perasol said Jones's ability to match up with Barron was also crucial.

"We haven't really any idea on how Earl Barron plays. Medyo nagkaroon lang kami ng zone defense so that we could read how we're going to defend him. In the end we know that DJ can match up with him very well. So I think if we can do that, if we can neutralize any import with our import, the other team will have a hard time defending against our offensive players."

Powerade moved into a tie atop the leaderboard with Philippine Cup finals nemesis Talk 'N Text, which also went 2-0 with a 110-98 beating of Alaska in the second game.

Gabby Espinas and Macmac Cardona scored 19 and 13 points, respectively, for Meralco, but Sol Mercado struggled in his first game back from an injury, finishing with only three points in 22 minutes of action.

E-mail: sid_ventura@yahoo.com. Twitter: @Sid_Ventura