HAVING secured a top two spot in the PBA Governors' Cup quarterfinals, one would think Meralco would be taking it easy for the rest of its remaining assignments that start with the match against Converge Wednesday at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
Far from it as coach Luigi Trillo maintained his Bolts need to have that razor-sharp edge to prepare them for whoever would be their opponent in the next round.
"We don't know who we're playing," Trillo said. "For us, we probably want to use these next two games as building blocks moving into the playoffs."
By virtue of a 114-104 win over NorthPort last Saturday, Meralco jacked its Group A record to a second-running 6-2 before winding up the intragroup stage with games against Converge and also-ran Terrafirma.
For its part, Converge is at 4-4 and needs to win not only against Meralco but also Magnolia at eliminations' end on Monday to secure its own spot in the crossover quarters.
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FiberXers interim head coach Franco Atienza said his team prefers to look only at the immediate task.
"If we look too far ahead 'yung attention namin, 'yung resources namin mag-di-dwindle," explained Atienza following a nail-biting100-99 squaker over Terrafirma last Saturday, a victory made possible by Scotty Hopson's second four-point game-winner in the tournament.
"We'll enjoy this game tonight and then tomorrow we'll start thinking about Meralco," added Atienza.
Converge top gunner Schonny Winston could not agree more. "It's getting close to playoff time so we're just trying to hone in and sharpen our skills and sharpen what we do good as a team and try to make it even better," he said.
"We're trying to just really cut out the fat and really get ready for playoff time and we didn't get to make the playoffs last year so these next two games are really big," Winston also said. "So we're just trying to focus in."
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Keeping his team locked in is what concerns Trillo most. "It's hard to find that level of intensity dahil you're already in," he noted. "So we have to manage that." (NC)
