Missed travel call on Mercado not reason why Bolts lost, says Alapag

Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

Sol Mercado may have travelled in the final minute, but that still doesn’t erase the fact that Meralco’s bad game caused its downfall Sunday in its 92-81 Game 5 defeat to Ginebra.

Jimmy Alapag also thinks the same way, saying that even though the referees didn’t call the infraction, the Bolts were still at fault for letting the game slip away early and failing to close the game out in the end.

“The game wasn’t lost on that play. If it wasn’t a travel, I thought it was but again, the referee didn’t call it, so you have to respect their call. The game wasn’t won or lost on that,” he said.

“We just weren’t as good as a team. In a Game 5 of a best-of-7, you have to give your best effort and we didn’t play that well tonight.”

The defeat put the Bolts in a precarious 2-3 series disadvantage, with Ginebra having the chance to wrap the series up on Wednesday.

Without anything to lose at this point, Alapag believes that Meralco can still bounce back and force a Game 7.

“The good thing is we have two and a half days to figure it out and get ready for Wednesday. We have nothing to lose at this point. Being down, our team has been resilient the entire season coming from the All-Filipino Cup to where we are now,” he said.

“It’s win or go home and we’re not ready to go home yet. We will be ready on Wednesday.”