You or me
Allen Durham practically came up with everything Meralco needed to weather a TNT storm on Saturday night, and coach Norman Black knows just one reason why that was so.
“He was pretty hungry,” said Black of the workhorse Durham, who scored 36 points and had 13 rebounds in a 95-83 decision of the KaTropa that took this side of the PBA Governors’ Cup semifinals to the distance. “He has been doing that the entire conference for us, and he’s the main reason why we’re in the situation we’re in now,”
It was an atonement game for the two-time best import, who practically gift-wrapped a Game 3 win for the enemy when, with the Bolts down by three in the dying seconds last Thursday, he threw out a pass to teammate Cliff Hodge, who wasn’t actually on the floor at that time.
Black dismissed that error, which bordered on the comical, as a thing of the past already. And that they should focus on the prize, which would be a return bout for the title with crowd darling and two-time tormentor Barangay Ginebra.
“So far, this series has been a game of adjustments,” Black said after forging a 2-2 tie. “Obviously, TNT won the first game, so they’re a little ahead. Now, we just have to figure out what to do in Game 5 and how we can adjust to make sure we get a victory.”
The rubber match is set at 7 p.m. at Ynares Center in Antipolo, and the KaTropa are also feeling the pressure, with top guard Jayson Castro admitting that they need to almost be perfect if they are to make a title series appearance for the second straight conference.
“Everything,” Castro said in Filipino when asked what else has to be done to make Finals bus and put the stubborn Bolts away. “All the cards have been laid down. It will just be a matter of which team wants to win [Game 5] more.”
Durham, meanwhile, was quick to deflect all credit on himself.
“It was not just me,” the four-time Bolts reinforcement told scribes. “Everybody was hungry … We’re trying to get back and finish it [all] this year.”
Durham, also the import of the Bolts when they lost in successive Finals to the Gin Kings from 2016, said that the gallant stand that night was one of his proudest moments with Meralco.
“We knew TNT was going to hit us with a knockout punch,” he said. “And we knew we had to weather the storm—not only weather it but send our own punch as well. And got to do it again.”
But more than having that unflinching resolve, Black stressed that they have to be better than their already top-notch defense that was in display that night—one that put the clamps on the KaTropa in a feisty third frame that could have turned things around.
“It felt like we played much better defense and we were able to hold them down a little bit in the third,” Black said.
TNT import, KJ McDaniels, one of the leading contenders for the best import award, wants his crew to play like there’s no more tomorrow. Because there really isn’t for the loser.
“We just have to come out there with a different mentality and fight,” he said. “We got to come out there and play like our lives are on the line.” INQ
