Bolts brace for tough road ahead

MANILA, Philippines: Luigi Trillo admitted that veteran center Raymond Almazan’s one-game suspension on Sunday left a gaping hole in the middle for the Bolts.

The Bolts felt Almazan’s absence after getting beaten off the boards, 48-37 and worse, suffered the ignominy of being the first victim of erstwhile winless Converge FiberXers on Sunday.

Bolts brace for tough road ahead

Playing without any pressure at all, Converge poured everything it had on the way to upstaging Meralco, 104-99 for its first win after starting the PBA Philippine Cup with eight straight defeats.

Almazan served the one-game ban handed out by the league after being accused of trying to bribe a traffic enforcer while trying to use the EDSA busway last week.

Trillo didn’t deny such infraction by Meralco’s veteran slotman, but he respectfully declined to comment further on what he termed as a “non-basketball” issue by Almazan.

Dropping to 3-5, Trillo said the team’s biggest concern now is the importance of hurdling its last three games, beginning with Phoenix this Friday.

“Phoenix had an exceptional game against (Robert) Bolick and NLEX. They shot the ball well and they were in the flow. They are a very unorthodox team,” Trillo told The Manila Times.

The Fuel Masters shot an astounding 51 percent from three-point zone, making 17 of their 33 attempts on the way to manhandling the Road Warriors, 112-77 on Saturday.

Meralco, Phoenix and Blackwater are all tied at ninth to 11th spots in the standings at the moment with their similar 3-5 records.

Making the eight-team playoffs only got tougher, but Trillo knows they will have to get their acts together fast.

After Phoenix, Meralco will have two battle-tested teams as opponents in Magnolia (April 28) and San Miguel (May 4).

“Moving forward we just have to get our guys prepared and be ready, because if we lose to Phoenix, we might be out already I think,” he said.