By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Reigning PBA Rookie of the Year Mikey Williams continued his stellar shooting night for the TNT Tropang Giga and steered them to a convincing 114-86 win over the Terrafirma Dyip in the ongoing 2022 PBA Philippine Cup.
With just three games in since joining the Tropang Giga again, the scoring machine never failed to wow the crowd after dropping 31 big points on 12/21 shooting from the field including six drained shots from downtown.
The Filipino-American shooting guard immediately caught fire in the opening quarter and scored 11 points in just nine minutes that spearheaded TNT’s offensive assault.
In his first possession aiming to score the ball, Williams sized up the lengthy Joshua Munzon and hit a long three-point bomb followed by two more treys and an and-one layup.
However, Terrafirma clawed their way back into the ball game in the second quarter and erased TNT’s 17-point first-quarter lead sparked by a Munzon personal rally.
Munzon cut TNT’s lead to just a single digit after hitting a step-back mid-range jumper from the left elbow and continued to pour in the attack after converting a pair of difficult buzzer-beating three-pointers that brought them back into the game.
The former PBA Rookie Draft no. 1 pick helped Terrafirma trim the Tropang Giga’s lead to just four, 41-37, with 3:40 remaining in the second quarter.
Munzon’s energetic performance then rejuvenated his team and was only down by just a point heading into the second half, 49-48.
In just a blink of an eye, Terrafirma once again found themselves in a deep hole midway into the third quarter after the Tropang Giga offense clicked at the perfect time.
A collective effort from TNT’s tested and proven veterans composed of Jason Castro, RR Pogoy, Brian Heruela, and Poy Erram led their rally and ballooned the lead to 17 points at the end of the third period.
Terrafirma’s bleeding didn’t stop until the end of the final canto after the Tropang Giga established its biggest lead at 33 points after Erram’s trey at the 4:20 mark of the fourth.
With the win, the Tropang Giga is now assured of a quarterfinals ticket and improved to 6-2 in the standings while the Dyip is yet to find its first win in five games
