MANILA, Philippines -- The De La Salle Lady Archers are not losing hope that they can force a winner-takes-all game against National University in the UAAP Season 85 women's basketball Finals.

However, the Lady Archers are well aware that it will take a "perfect game" for them to defeat the powerhouse Lady Bulldogs after suffering a 93-61 rout in the opener of the best-of-3 series last Wednesday.

The La Salle women, making their first appearance in the Finals since 2016, faltered in the face of NU's pressure defense and couldn't stop the Lady Bulldogs from knocking down their three-pointers.

"You need to play a perfect game against a perfect team like NU," said La Salle coach Cholo Villanueva, whose team pulled off a 61-57 upset of the Lady Bulldogs in the elimination round but struggled to repeat the feat in the Finals.

"Those mistakes, those careless mistakes of losing possessions on the press shifted the momentum of the game and they were dictating it all the way," the coach noted.

• READ: NU on brink of 7-peat after rout of La Salle
• READ: Inexperience haunts La Salle women in Game 1

These are the kinds of errors that La Salle needs to avoid in Game 2, set for Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena. A victory there for the Lady Bulldogs will give them a seventh straight women's basketball championship -- the exact scenario that the Lady Archers hope to stop.

"We need to take care of every possession because it's a possession-by-possession game, and we can't be giving up added possession to them because of our turnovers," said Villanueva.

"We just need to be more precise on our movements, be perfect on our movements in each possession because again, they always capitalize on our mistakes," he also said.

For the Lady Bulldogs, the key is to not get caught up on their Game 1 triumph. NU head coach Aris Dimaunahan reiterated that his team has 24 hours to celebrate and dwell on their performance in the opener; after that, the focus should be on Game 2.

Dimaunahan also does not want the Lady Bulldogs to put too much stock into their comfortable win, as the memory of their loss to La Salle in the second round -- a loss that ended their historic 108-game winning streak -- is still fresh in their minds.

"We don't look at the score," said Dimaunahan, who is trying to steer National U to the championship in his first season in charge.

"What we look at is how we are playing the game. Even during timeouts, it's been said that nobody looks at the score, and ang priority namin is papaano namin lalaruin ng tama 'yung game na 'to, and then let the results take care of itself," he said.

Game time at the MOA Arena is at 2:00 p.m.

UAAP Season 85 is streaming on iWantTFC every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, available for Premium users outside the Philippines.