Coach Norman Black remains a firm believer that Meralco can turn things around and prevent Barangay Ginebra San Miguel from winning another championship at his team’s expense in Game 6 of the PBA Governors’ Cup Finals.
Back-to-back losses put the Bolts behind 3-2 in the best-of-seven and on the brink of suffering another finals defeat to the Gin Kings, but Black said he and his team are not losing hope.
“It takes four wins to win the championship. They’ve only won three games,” Black said. “Obviously, I’m not giving up, my players aren’t giving up. We still have a chance at tying the series. So we’ll work hard to try and fix some of our mistakes.”
Meralco won two of the first three games of the championship series behind a stellar defensive effort that forced Ginebra to a low shooting percentage.
But Black lamented how the Bolts’ defense crumbled in the next two matches, the latter ending with a 115-110 loss which was the highest scoring game of the finals.
That is something Black and the Bolts would like to improve.
“Rotation on defense is really, really important because we just seem to be one rotation late a lot of times against the offense of Ginebra,” he said. “So really we have to work on that.
“But hey, they only have three wins. We win on Wednesday, we tie the series. That’s what we’re focused on right now,” Black added.
The sixth game is set Wednesday, April 20 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, with Meralco aiming to force a decider two nights later at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Meralco previously pushed Ginebra to seventh game back in the 2017 Governors’ Cup Finals, but fell short in the do-or-die affair held before 54,000 fans at the Philippine Arena.