Calm Bolts unfazed by specter of Kings sweep

Justin Brownlee’s clutch heroics lift Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings past Meralco Bolts in Game 2 of the PBA Governors’ Cup quarterfinals. –PBA IMAGES

Meralco is on the edge of being shown the door in the PBA Governors’ Cup by a familiar enemy who has repeatedly sent them packing in the past.

But even with their backs against the wall, the Bolts, 0-2 down, are looking at their elimination game against Barangay Ginebra with an extraordinary sense of calm.

For starters, head coach Luigi Trillo said that his charges actually turned in a better outing compared to how they fared in the series opener last Thursday.

“We played much better than our first game,” head coach Luigi Trillo told the Inquirer on Sunday, following Meralco’s stunning 104-103 Game 2 loss to the crowd darlings the night before.

“The thing I liked is we played with poise down the stretch, and we played hard with intensity,” he went on.

Then there’s resident import Allen Durham, who despite a herculean effort of 39 points and 14 rebounds, once again figured on the other end of a Justin Brownlee game-winning three.

“They made some big shots down the stretch [and] Brownlee did what Brownlee does,” Durham said. “We’ll come back and play again on Monday.”

Whether the pair was simply trying to mask their worries over being eliminated is hardly relevant at this point.

What’s certain now is that both Trillo and Durham have locked in on Meralco’s survival stand at Ninoy Aquino Stadium on Monday night.

“They are playing with confidence and it’s up to us as a group to take away their confidence,” said Trillo.

“As good as we played, we could’ve been more solid by eliminating lapses. It’s not easy, but at this point, as a team, we have to have higher standards for ourselves.”

Meralco truly played tighter basketball on Saturday, scaling down their errors from Game 1’s 15 to just eight that night. The Bolts, however, paid dearly with their shooting, especially from the charity stripe where they hit only half of their shots—a massive dip following a 75 percent conversion rate in the series opener.

And that should be a neat starting point for the Bolts in the troubleshooting ahead of Game 3 set at 5 p.m. INQ