Bolts hit stride despite key players’ injuries
Despite its manpower woes, Meralco has managed to rack up three wins through its first four games in the PBA Governors’ Cup.
And that alone is a feat of its own, according to Bolts skipper Chris Newsome.
“That really just shows how well of a program we have—that we are still able to get wins despite the circumstances we have right now,” he told reporters shortly on Sunday night, when he came back from ankle and knee issues to help Meralco to a 109-99 victory over NorthPort.
The Bolts continued to miss Raymond Almazan and Allein Maliksi due to injuries, and even saw Cliff Hodge exit that game early due to a bad back, leaving only Newsome, Allen Durham, Chris Banchero and Bong Quinto to hold the fort against a Batang Pier side eager to keep rolling.
“No Raymond, No Allein? This shows a lot about the character of this team—that we have a lot of guys who are ready to step up, fill in roles. We’re using that championship experience. We got that next-man-up mentality all the time, that’s why we have confidence from the first man to the last man on the bench,” Newsome said.
While Meralco’s early record is a source of pride, Newsome also knows that sitting at a 3-1 win-loss record hardly says anything at this point of the tournament.
“Anything can happen. We’ve seen teams that started off well at the beginning of the last conference and then ended up being out towards the end, so you can never really base your performance on your first three or four games,” he said.
“You gotta play solid all the way though, and it all comes down to peaking at the right time.” he went on. “Even if you finish the No. 1 seed, you still got a series to play. And everything that has happened throughout the season doesn’t matter—it’s irrelevant at that point. You really just got to play your best basketball.”
Meralco coach Luigi Trillo begged off from providing a timeline for Maliksi and Almazan, two integral cogs during the Bolts’ championship run in the last Philippine Cup, citing the need to be careful about their recovery.
All Meralco could do now is to hope that the Bolts keep riding whatever momentum they’re on right now and be ready once the pair is ready to see action.
And Newsome has faith the rest of his teammates can do just that. The Bolts, after all, are no stranger to early adversities.
“Again, these things are that we have to go through. We may have some injuries right now but that’s an opportunity for others to step up,” he said.
“Sometimes I think you need to have those losses, those challenges early in the season that you need to overcome so it could make you a stronger team. I think the adversity we had last year is what actually made us stronger for our player push,” he said of last year’s campaign, that finally made the franchise something very few teams are able to tell about themselves: A PBA champion.
