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[av_heading heading=’Mercado vows to muzzle Bolts’ Durham for Ginebra finals title’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
By ADRIAN STEWART CO
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MANILA– Aside from his game-winning basket, Solomon Mercado also served as the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings’ hero in Game 2 of the 2016 Oppo PBA Governor’s Cup finals as he limited Meralco Bolts import Allen Durham to just a little over 20 points.
Durham, the Best Import of the Conference awardee, finished the match with 22 points on a sour 10-of-24 shooting, a far cry from his 46 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists performance in Game 1 on Friday night.
“I take pride in my defense,” said Mercado. “Stay in front of bigger guys and my strength to prevent them from getting their spots. I was trying to run him out of the perimeter but he is really a good player.”
“Actually I was surprised that coach Tim (Cone) told me before the game that I was gonna guard Durham and I just took the challenge head on,” added Mercado, who vows to limit Durham’s touches for the rest of the series.
Cone, for his part, credited Mercado for his good defense against Durham and also plans to use the same ploy in the succeeding games of the race-to-four championship series.
“We changed our match-ups today and we let Sol chase Allen. He did a great job to limit his touches,” said Cone. “When Allen got by Sol, which was not very often, either Japeth (Aguilar) or Justin (Brownlee) were there to help.”
“I was glad that we were able to pull it off (the Game 2 win) it could have gone either way and for us we could have gone down 0-2,” added Cone. “So I told my players that it was a must-win for us.”
Action resumes on Wednesday evening in the Big Dome with both the Kings and Bolts eager to clinch the 2-1 series lead to move two wins closer to bagging the season-ending championship./PN
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