BATTLE LINES DRAWN: Tropa wary of hungry Bolts

BATTLE LINES DRAWN: Tropa wary of hungry Bolts | Daily Tribune

Game time is at 5:15 p.m. before the 7:30 tipoff between Barangay Ginebra and Rain or Shine.

Eighth-seeded TNT overcame a twice-to-win handicap over top-seeded NLEX to stay on track for a fifth straight finals appearance.

Surviving back-to-back do-or-die matches capped by a 118-112 victory last Saturday makes the Tropang 5G even more dangerous.

For Meralco head coach Luigi Trillo, it will take a lot of effort from the Bolts to hurdle the same team that eliminated them in the season-opening Philippine Cup.

“Obviously, they are deserving to make the finals and they are hard to beat in a seven-game series,” Trillo said.

“But with the way we are playing, we deserve to be there, too.”

Indeed, Meralco has shown grit in the post-season after edging Magnolia, 105-102, in overtime in a sudden death last Saturday after the Hotshots forced the Bolts to use their quarters incentive.

In their lone elimination round meeting, Meralco edged TNT in a 110-106 escape after squandering a 20-point lead.

“That’s a complete team. They’re playing at a very high level. If you remember in our elimination round game, Meralco blew us out, right?” TNT coach Chot Reyes said.

“They have so many offensive weapons that it’s incumbent upon us to, number one, defend well and rebound. They’re also one of the more physical teams in the league and you see how teams are playing Bol. So, we have to be able to cope with that and play through that,” he added.

But repeating over Bol and the Tropang 5G is easier said than done especially with TNT’s main guns back in full health.

RR Pogoy, Jayson Castro, Calvin Oftana and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser are all contributing well after dealing with injuries during the elims.

It’s going to be a tough challenge for reinforcement Marvin Jones, Chris Newsome, CJ Cansino, Jason Brickman and Bong Quinto.

Meralco’s defensive focus, however, is on Bol after averaging a league-leading 37.6 points and 4.0 blocks on top of 14.5 rebounds per game. Bol normed 34.5 points, 13.5 boards and 2.5 blocks in the quarters.

On the other hand, the Kings-Elasto Painters pairing is a story of two hungry teams looking to halt a series of heartbreaks.

Ginebra has not won a championship in seven tournaments since claiming the Season 47 edition of the import-laden conference three years ago. The Kings have reached the finals three times since then but would lose all of them at the hands of TNT including last season’s Commissioner’s Cup.

Rain or Shine has a longer drought of over a decade after winning its second and last crown in the 2016 Commissioner’s Cup. It was also the Elasto Painters’ last finals appearance.

The Kings are coming off a 112-81 rout of Phoenix for a quick quarters stint last Friday but head coach Tim Cone doesn’t expect the same walk in the park against Rain or Shine.

“We’re coming now into Game 1 off a 40-point or 35-point win. We got to make sure that we stay not too high, not too low at this point,” he said.

“I expect it to be a really, really tough series. Like I said, they can really wear you down over seven games,” the 25-time champion tactician added.

The Elasto Painters eliminated San Miguel Beer, 113-104, last Friday — the franchise’s first playoffs win over the Beermen in 10 years, in the same conference where Rain or Shine won its last championship.

But Elasto Painters coach Yeng Guiao is not biting.