Meralco Bolts. PBA IMAGES
Despite a troubling losing skid, trades are still far from the mind of Meralco coach Norman Black at this stage of the 2017 PBA Philippine Cup.
“Not now. It’s too late in the season, plus the players I have, I have young guys that we’ll continue to develop,” he said.
Though Black is willing to take the long road in honing his young crew, the journey has hit a rough patch as the Bolts suffered their fourth defeat, this time a 97-89 loss to GlobalPort on Friday.
READ: Romeo ends GlobalPort’s two-game slide
Meralo fell behind by 16 points in the first half and the deficit proved to be too much to come back from, though the veteran mentor lauded his squad for the better showing it had in the second half.
“It’s kind of hard to come back from a deficit like last game, but at the same time, I thought we played much better in the second half,” he said.
Rookie Jonathan Grey caught fire in the third frame, unloading 10 of his 18 points to get Meralco back in the game, but that fightback fell short and the team remained at the bottom four of the standings with a 2-5 card.
READ: Wright gets hot as Phoenix stuns Meralco
Though Meralco’s rookies have been churning out stellar performances since the start of the season, their lack of a go-to-guy in the clutch was underscored against Globalport, which had Terrence Romeo among others.
“My rookie showed a lot of promise in helping us get back in the basketball game. But once again, they had the player who made the big plays down the stretch in Terrence Romeo and we didn’t make the big shots when we had the chance.”
Frustrating as the Bolts’ situation may be, Black said that the team couldn’t do anything but to stay the course and continue working hard until they turn things around.
“There’s no panic button to push, you just keep working hard until you start winning. That’s basically it,” he said. “We’re just going to keep on working hard.There’s not pretty much I can explain to you about losing, but we’ll work hard until things turn around and we start winning. You don’t hit panic buttons, you don’t get upset and cry in the corner, you just continue to go to practice and work on your game, and try to improve as you can until you start winning games.”
Meralco eyes to end its four-game losing skid against Mahindra next Wednesday.