By REYNALD MAGALLON
Meralco and TNT try to go for the kill against their foes in Game 2 of their respective best-of-three quarterfinals series in the 2024 PBA Philippine Cup at the historic Rizal Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, May 12.
The Bolts and the Tropang Giga both drew first bloods in their series with contrasting victories in Game 1 to move on cusp of a possible semifinal berths.
TNT gets the first crack at advancing to the next round when it hopes to replicate its commanding Game 1 win against Rain or Shine in the first offering at 3 p.m. before Meralco gets its own chance against NLEX in the nightcap at 6:15 p.m.
While both teams are very much capable of closing out the series right there and then, both TNT and Meralco are in no illusion to expect an easy fight against their opponents who are desperate to live to fight another day.
The Bolts, for one, seemed to only dodge a huge bullet in the series opener after they surprisingly survived the 48-point explosion of Robert Bolick and still came away with a close 97-93 win.
Head coach Luigi Trillo was not pleased with how his team, a known defensive oriented squad, played Bolick and he wouldn’t want to see it again in Game 2.
“For Game 2 it’s gonna be harder when the team’s back against the wall. We’re capable of closing it out but we really respect Robert Bolick,” said the amiable coach.
“We have a lot of things to fix. We’re not going to get to the semis with a defense like that,” he added.
On the other hand, TNT is hoping to stick to what worked for them in Game 1 when it gave ROS a quick reality check in the playoffs with a convincing 116-99 win.
The duo of Calvin Oftana and RR Pogoy did most of the damage for the Tropang Giga pouring 32 and 26 points respectively while also limiting Beau Belga to just five points in the contest.
The Tropang Giga may need to do some tweaks on their defense to slow down Santi Santillan who led the way for the Elasto Painters with 23 points.
