Battered and bruised from a 30-point Game One beatdown, La Salle needed a big response to survive.
And it sure gave one.
La Salle willed its way to a winner-take-all for the UAAP Season 86 men's basketball title with an 82-60 rout of University of the Philippines in Game Two in front of a sellout crowd of 20,863 fans at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
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Despite starting from the bench, Kevin Quiambao atoned for his Game One flop with nine points and 13 boards on the day he was formally crowned league MVP and the Green Archers found plenty of heroes from stars down to their bench to send the best-of-three finals to a decider.
Francis Escandor (14 points) also hit four three-pointers in the game of his life while Joshua David had four treys of his own to complement Quiambao and Evan Nelle, who had 12 assists and 10 boards for the energized Green Archers.
Game Three is set on Wednesday, also at the Big Dome.
"I guess they just really don't want to end this finals right away. We just gave, I guess, UP a good fight. You know, the players really wanted it this afternoon and they were just trying to be prepared also for the way it's going to be," said La Salle coach Topex Robinson.
"Winning a championship is gonna be hard, you know, playing against the top college team in the country right now. It's going to be hard but sa 'min, knowing in that moment, we just kept on enjoying the game that we love that has been good to us.
"So come Game Three, obviously there's going to be a lot of work and we know UP will come out with guns blazing," he added.
It was the tallest of orders with such high stakes for La Salle to recover from the losing end of a demolition job, and it didn't start on the right foot with UP hitting a 12-2 start to Game Two.
That early edge proved to be the Maroons' lone moment of control as Escandor & Co. fired on all fronts, even with the MVP taking on a rather unprecedented reserve role in the Archers' do-or-die battle.
Twelve Lasallian triples (eight from Escandor and David combined) over just two for the Maroons defined the story of the ballgame in which a lopsided series opener was followed by a ever-so dominant response.
The scores:
DLSU (82) – Escandor 14, David 12, Austria 11, Quiambao 9, M. Phillips 9, Nonoy 8, Macalalag 7, Cortez 6, Nelle 4, B. Phillips 2, Manuel 0, Abadam 0, Policarpio 0.
UP (60) – Cansino 11, Diouf 11, Alarcon 10, Lopez 9, Cagulangan 6, Felicilda 6, Torculas 4, Abadiano 3, Belmonte 0, Torres 0, Alter 0, Pablo 0, Gonzales 0, Briones 0.
Quarterscores: 24-27, 44-38, 65-49, 82-60
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