Allen Durham shifts focus on Meralco Bolts’ next mission

Allen Durham (with ball) and the Bolts got clocked out of the quarterfinals by Japeth Aguilar, RJ Abarrientos and the rest of the Gin Kings. —AUGUST DELA CRUZ

Allen Durham’s woes against Barangay Ginebra continued to persist on Monday night as Meralco bowed out of the Governors’ Cup after getting swept in the best-of-five quarterfinals.

But the Meralco import, who after productive stints overseas still chose to return to the Meralco franchise in hopes of solving an old puzzle, spoke to reporters with his head held high.

“At the moment I can’t think of anything,” he told reporters when asked if he had what-ifs over the Bolts’ conference that ended in the opening round of the playoffs.

“In every series that we played, in every battle that we’ve had with them, we had an opportunity to win. You can go down the line and say ‘What if this happened?’ ‘What if that happened?’ You can clearly do that. But you don’t,” he said matter-of-factly.

Too early

The Bolts, coming off a historic first PBA championship, won seven of its 10 games in the elimination round. They lost to just two clubs during that span—to powerhouse sister team TNT and then Converge toward the end of the second round.

Meralco and Durham, who entered the knockout stage technically as the No. 2 seed off the Group A race, met Group B’s third-ranked Barangay Ginebra and Justin Brownlee in a contest that historically unfolded in a championship series.

Fans felt it was too early for the two clubs to lock horns in the quarterfinals, some thought they should reprise their roles in the finalé for a fitting rematch.

But all that are exactly what Durham refused to spend time ruminating that night: What-ifs.

“They had just a good run and stuff like that in the fourth quarter and we weren’t able to stop their runs, you know,” he said of the Gin Kings, who put the series to bed with a 113-106 Game 3 triumph at Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.

“We kind of let one mistake turn into two mistakes turn into three mistakes and so we couldn’t stop that run and they started hitting big shots down the stretch,” he added.

Meralco was the first to bow out of the quarterfinals. Converge remained in contention for a semifinal spot after stunning San Miguel on a Alec Stockton game-winner in Game 3 later that night.

Other reinforcements

What Durham hopes to focus on right now is Meralco’s upcoming stint in the East Asia Super League (EASL), where the Bolts are looking to perform well after a string of horrendous outings by Filipino clubs.

In that Asian showcase, Durham will backstop a Meralco side that will have Brownlee’s college teammates DJ Kennedy and Ange Kouame as reinforcements.

“We’ve got to forget about this. Obviously, it’s disappointing and things like that. We can’t keep holding things in our minds. We gotta play a tough team in Macau … we’re gonna go at the film, and see the mistakes we’ve made and make sure we try to clean those up for the game on Wednesday,” he said of the contest with the visiting Black Bears at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

“I played there (in EASL through Ryukyu) for two years for something like that,” he said of the tournament that will pit the top two clubs of leagues across the region in a home-and-away format.

“All the teams in it are great, so just like here [in the PBA] you gotta be ready to play. Anybody can beat you. You can lose any day and so we got to be ready for Wednesday, for sure,” he added. INQ