Manila is not just about Greg Slaughter and crack shooter and Gilas veteran Carl Bryan Cruz.
There’s a little dynamo in the team named Enzo Navarro.
He stands only at 5-foot-8 but make no mistake about it as his blinding speed, deadly accuracy from afar and creative plays can do damage to any team in the MPBL.
Just like what he did to Iloilo on Wednesday at the Villar Coliseum in Las Pinas.
Playing his best game so far, Navarro buried seven triples on 10 tries on the way to finishing with 22 points, enough to help power Manila to a 98-74 drubbing of Iloilo.
He also logged 9 assists, 7 rebounds and 2 steals to earn best player honors over 7-footer Greg Slaughter, 6-foot-7 Rabeh Al-Hussaini and Cruz and anchor the Manila SV Batang Sampaloc Stars to their fifth straight win and a 10-4 record in the round-robin elimination round of the 29-team tournament.
Cruz posted 14 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists while Slaughter finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists. Hussaini contributed 14 points and 8 rebounds for Manila, which ruled the boards, 58-42, and led by as far as 89-61.
The Iloilo United Royals saw their three-win run broken and tumbled to 5-8.
Iloilo got 18 points and 4 rebounds from Gwyne Capacio, 14 points plus 5 rebounds from Shaquille Imperial, and 12 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists from Clint Doliguez.
In earlier games, Caloocan leaned on Joel Lee Yu’s back-to-back layups to stun Batangas, 73-72, while South Cotabato subdued Mindoro, 107-91.
The Batangas City Tanduay Rum Masters had a chance to reverse the outcome, but Jeckster Apinan missed a floater jumper with 2.6 left, allowing the Caloocan Batang Kankaloo to escape with their seventh win against four losses.
