This time, Meralco made sure there won’t be an endgame meltdown.
The Bolts led from start to finish and scored a dominant 97-89 triumph in Game 3 over the TNT Tropang 5G to get back in business in the PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals series on Friday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
On a night when the Tropang 5G were honoring one of their all-time greatest players — Ranidel de Ocampo — by honoring his number 33 jersey, the Bolts came out to spoil the party as they were all locked in to salvage their first victory in the race-to-four series.
Six players scored nine points or more for the Bolts, who displayed better spread of production offensively, but it was their effort on the defensive end where they were more noticeable.
They focused their attention on shackling down Calvin Oftana, who’s been reduced to only six points on 1-of-7 shooting from the field. Jordan Heading, a dependable shooter, was also held scoreless and missed all his seven attempts.
“Oftana is just one of the guys. There’s just so many in their points of attack. RR Pogoy had 28, (Rey) Nambatac had 13, but Heading was scoreless. We’re just trying to get with the match ups right. We don’t want all of them to explode,” said Meralco coach Luigi Trillo, who called the shots for the second straight games in lieu of active coaching consultant Nenad Vucinic.
Vucinic went home in Serbia to attend the daughter of his wedding and won’t be back to coach the Bolts until Game 5.
Despite missing the past two games, Trillo confirmed to media during the postgame interview that Vucinic had been keeping in touch with the team.
“He would want to be here , but it’s his daughter’s wedding,” added Trillo. “He’s in touch with us. He sent us videos. We want to do our role na sana pagbalik niya, we’ll be in a good position, but it’s easier said than done. We known TNT is gonna come back in the next game. Sana we can give him a fitting gift pagbalik niya. But we love the effort from our guys.”
But with Meralco now chalking up a victory after three games, the team appears to be in high spirit ahead of Game 4 to be played on Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
“Sunday’s going to be a big game, bigger than today,” said Banchero, who led the team’s production with 18 points and six rebounds. “But for whatever reason, we love to fight when our back are against the wall. We need to win. I expect everybody to rise to the occasion, including myself. We’re excited already.”
