Purefoods trounces Blackwater for back-to-back wins

MANILA, Philippines – The Purefoods Star Hotshots made marginal progress in building some momentum in the 2015 PBA Philippine Cup despite turning back the Blackwater Elite, 90-82, and notching their first back-to-back wins on Tuesday, November 18 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The win comes after Purefoods claimed a lopsided 92-76 victory over NLEX last Friday, November 14 making the defending Grand Slam champions an even 3-3 in the standings.

PJ Simon and Joe Devance topscored with 18 and 16 points, respectively, as the Hotshots succeeded in keeping a safe distance from Blackwater amid the latter’s repeated uprisings.

Purefoods, which held its biggest lead at 44-29 late in the first half, traded baskets with Blackwater throughout the fourth and protected leads of at least 7 points or up to 12 points.

Blackwater, on the other hand, was carried by Sunday Salvacion’s 14 points on 3-of-8 three-pointers and Bryan Faundo’s double-double of 14 markers and 10 boards.

The Elite remain without a win in 7 outings.

Despite the win and climbing up the standings, Purefoods head coach Tim Cone is not satisfied with how his team played.

“Well it certainly wasn’t a scintillating performance on our part. We didn’t play all that well,” he said, visibly concerned.

“I wish we played a little better. If we played better it would’ve given us momentum coming into our next game.”

Although Purefoods came away with the victory, their game dipped coming off a more fluid showing against the Road Warriors.

Blackwater out-rebounded Purefoods by 54-39, which resulted to a wide 26-6 discrepancy in second-chance points in favor of the Elite.

They also went 0-of-9 from three-point range while Blackwater converted 7 of their 23 attempts.

“There were times where I felt we could have stretched the lead and blown it open but they came back fighting every time,” Cone admitted that Blackwater played well to keep in step with them.

Purefoods did enough to win, but certainly not enough for real momentum.

“We played a good a game against NLEX and we were hoping that would smooth us out but we’re still not playing connected basketball. We’re kind of disjointed,” Cone explained.

“We’re not playing particularly well with each other at this point. We lose focus in certain possessions. I keep waiting for us to break out of it and I thought maybe we did last game but one game is not momentum.”

Purefoods faces a fellow up-and-down team in the Meralco Bolts on Sunday and he is hoping a win then could pick up the pace for his squad.

“The bottomline for us is we just gotta get through this game and move forward.”

Scores:

PUREFOODS (90): Simon 18, Devance 16, Maliksi 11, Melton 8, Mallari 8, Pingris 7, Taha 6, Barroca 6, Yap 6, Holstein 3, Reavis 1, Gaco 0, Matias 0, Allado 0.

BLACKWATER (82): Faundo 14, Salvacion 14, Nuyles 12, Artadi 12, Ballesteros 8, Gamalinda 6, Heruela 5, Erram 4, Laure 4, Tiongson 3, Menor 0, Rodriguez 0, Timberlake 0, Celiz 0.

Quarter scores: 26-21, 46-39, 67-58, 90-82.

Here are some photos of the game taken by Nuki Sabio/PBA Images

– Rappler.com