At A Glance
- Meralco head coach Luigi Trillo owned up to the Bolts' Game 2 loss after he felt his wards failed to keep up with a sharper TNT team.
Meralco head coach Luigi Trillo owned up to the Bolts’ Game 2 loss after he felt his wards failed to keep up with a sharper TNT team.
Unlike in the series opener, Meralco played catchup against TNT which had a better start to the contest behind the hot shooting of Calvin Oftana and Jordan Heading.
“More than anything, that’s on me first,” said Trillo, who alone at the helm in Game 2 as team consultant Nenad Vucinic flew to New Zealand for the wedding of his daughter.
“Looking at the guys, when they (Tropang 5G) take it to another level, we should be able to match it. We didn’t do that tonight. We didn’t shoot the ball well,” he added.
The Bolts didn’t have any rhythm to the contest, evident to their measly 1-of-14 shooting from the three-point territory — a weapon that was working for them in Game 1.
“Didn’t play well today obviously. They hit a lot of threes. I just felt that their intensity (TNT) was at another level,” noted Trillo.
“That’s why they are Talk ‘N Text. You have to give credit to them with the way they played today,” he added.
And it also didn’t help that their defense was nowhere to be found when they badly needed them. Meralco allowed TNT to shoot 55 percent from the field while having a hard time finding the gaps in the Tropang 5G defense.
“They’re hitting every shot. They were on point,” said Trillo.
“Their defense was bar none. Oftana played like Calvin Oftana, the best forward right now. And Heading played well. Hats off to Talk ‘N Text. They outplayed us every quarter,” he admitted.
But Trillo is quickly putting the Game 2 debacle behind as the Bolts hope to bounce back in the next game and avoid falling in a deep 0-3 hole.