How’s the Green Archers fandom feeling this morning?

If you woke up with your shoulders a little lighter, your coffee tasting a little sweeter, and your timeline looking like a Taft street party, that’s the natural side effect of dragging the league’s No. 1 team into a winner-take-all. There’s a glow to the air right now — the kind you only get after a pulsating, season-shifting, “wait, are we peaking at the perfect time?” kind of night.

So. What exactly happened?
Let’s walk through this like we’re reviewing security footage of the moment La Salle cracked the NU code.

1. Did La Salle win because they finally shot the basketball like they meant it?

Oh, my friend… absolutely yes.

Last night felt like the team collectively found its jump shot the way you find an old password scribbled behind a notebook:

• 48% FG — a full seven percentage points above the season norm.
• 35% from deep — practically a redemption arc after the 17% and 20% shooting nights against NU earlier.
• 52% inside the arc — ten percentage points better than either Bulldog duel.
• 65% FT — when you live at 58%, this is borderline renaissance stuff.

La Salle didn’t just shoot better — they shot like they were cashing in overdue karma.

2. Was the game more controlled, even if it didn’t look like it?

Here’s the fun twist:
La Salle won by embracing chaos — but controlled chaos, the kind Coach Topex seems to stir like a chef who knows exactly how much heat the pot can take.

He let the boys flow. Take risks. Run their rhythm.

And naturally, that meant:

• Only 15 assists (down from 19.43).
• 17 turnovers (up from the usual 12).

But here’s the secret:
When your athletes are longer, faster, and freer, chaos becomes a weapon — and NU had no counter.

3. Balanced scoring? Absolutely the secret sauce.

This wasn’t a solo act.
This was a full Taft orchestra tuning perfectly at the right time.

Four Archers in double figures.
Ten out of eleven guys Coach Topex sent in scored.
That’s not depth — that’s infrastructure.

Roll call:

• Mike Phillips – 13
• Jacob Cortez – 12
• EJ Gollena – 11
• Vhoris Marasigan – 10
• JC Macalalag – 8
• Mason Amos – 8
• Earl Abadam – 6
• Kean Baclaan – 6

Everyone ate. NU couldn’t key in on a single threat — because every possession felt like a new problem they didn’t have the math for.

4. The turning point: The Third Quarter That Rewrote the Script

Some quarters feel like a shootout.
This one felt like La Salle chained the basket shut and swallowed the key.

La Salle outscored NU 19–8, but the beauty wasn’t in the numbers — it was in the suffocation:

• NU shot 26.7%,
• Made zero threes,
• Coughed up 7 turnovers — nearly half their game total.

That was a defensive masterclass.
A Taft clinic.
A “you’re not scoring here unless you bring a bribe” kind of quarter.

5. La Salle the Mismatch Machine

Here’s where the fun really begins.

La Salle’s wings turned the court into a geometry riddle: too long to shoot over, too quick to drive past, too athletic to ignore.

Nash Enriquez — NU’s premier guard — suddenly found himself trapped in green quicksand. The matchups were so tough that NU eventually had to sit him for much of the fourth.

The others?  They were forced to foul before someone in green gets an easy basket.  This is the reason why NU landed in the penalty with a solid 7 minutes to go in the quarter.

Meanwhile, JC Macalalag?
He found pockets of space so easily you’d think he had the Taft master key. Anytime Nash tried to stay in front, JC simply slithered into daylight.

This was mismatch basketball at its cleanest, meanest, most modern form.

6. Fourth Quarter: Green Control Mode

By the time the final frame opened, La Salle wasn’t just leading — they were dictating terms.

Motor Mike detonated a dunk that felt like a power surge.
Luis Pablo followed with a straight-line drive, so clean it looked pre-approved.

You could feel it.
This was no longer a contest.
This was a team leaning into its identity and taking the wheel.

NU tried to rally.
La Salle didn’t blink.

Because by then, everything — tempo, matchups, rhythm, momentum — tilted Taft green.

FINAL SPIKE

The Bulldogs barked.
The Archers answered with sharp flaming arrows straight into their noisy snout.
And now the season comes down to one last ignited arrow — drawn, nocked, and ready. Squarely aimed again for the final Bulldog kill.

ANIMO LA SALLE!

BEAT NU….AGAIN!!!