Meralco import Allen Durham. PBA IMAGES
Meralco didn’t come out of the halftime break at its best and TNT took full advantage of it.
The Bolts just couldn’t recover from the Michael Madanly-led breakaway and dropped the opening game, 113-95, of their best-of-5 semifinals series.
“We came out in the third quarter a little flat and TNT, they’re the number one team for reason and they capitalized off of our mistakes and you saw what happened,” Durham said.
Durham did all he could in the game, leading the Bolts with 26 points, 21 rebounds, seven assists, and three blocks.
But it still wasn’t enough as Durham begged for support from his local teammates for the next game on Thursday.
“A couple of our main guys, they need to step it up in Game 2,” he said.
Not only one offense, Durham believes Meralco must also pick it up a notch on defense if it wants to avoid a 0-2 hole on Thursday.
“They’re all shooters, so we got to make adjustments because if they keep shooting like that, it’s going to be a short series,” he said.
Durham, though, is positive the Bolts can equalize in the next game if they do things right.
“It’s a series, there’s nothing we can do about this game so I’m pretty sure we’ll bounce back,” he said. “Nobody’s giving us a chance, but the beauty of basketball is you still got to play the game. We’re the underdogs but we still got a chance. We got to do better in Game 2 and I think we’ll make this series competitive.”