There’s no power outage whatsoever for Meralco even as injuries continued to plague their key players and that is largely due to the superb play from their shocktroopers who proved to be ready to fill in the void when their numbers are called upon.

The Bolts head coach Luigi Trillo was all praises to the team’s bench players, who provided Meralco a huge lift as they continue to miss gunners Allein Maliksi and Aaron Black and big man Cliff Hodge joining center Raymond Almazan and Norbert Torres on the sick bay.

“I think what’s nice is you have guys like Anjo (Caram), he’s a pro, he’s ready to play. Not just him but also Alvin (Pasaol) also played well today,” said Trillo in the aftermath of Meralco’s 116-88 victory over Converge.

“The other guys who don't really get many minutes. They are huge today and made contributions for us,” he added as Caram finished with 16 points in spot start while Pasaol added 12.

With Meralco playing depleted particularly on the frontline, Trillo and active consultant Nenad Vucinic was forced to play some of its wingmen as a four.

Still, that somehow worked to Meralco’s advantage as playing a smaller player at the power forward spots allowed them to match up well to other team’s imports like Glenn Robinson of Magnolia, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson of TNT and Scotty Hopson of Converge.

“You give credit to the guys that stepped up. No cliff we had Bong (Quinto at the four, Jansen (Rios) at the four and Alvin came out and really contributed and Toto jose.Magandang exposure to sa kanila and the way the season built and also playing the EASL we believe in these guys and that they are able to contribute,”said Trillo.

The amiable coach, however, is hoping his charges could sustain the winning run to the second round of the eliminations and in time, before their players recovers from their injuries.

“We’re just trying to get as many good games as we can to hold the fort. Hopefully the other guys can get back but it’s next man up” stressed Trillo.

“It's an opportunity for guys all around and they’re taking advantage of it. Kailangan tulong-tulong/ It’s gonna be throughout the season, team’s get injured all the time and we have ours now so we are dealing with that,” he added.