FOR the first time in the PBA Commissioner's Cup, Meralco would be playing with a relatively full complement as its erstwhile injured players have sufficiently recovered to suit up.
That should both be a big boost and a mild source of concern for coach Luigi Trillo going to his Bolts' collision with Eastern in the mid-season tournament's resumption Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Meralco wants to snap out of a two-game slide that relegated it to a 3-2 record, but admittedly has a tough task against the Hong Kong-based guest team which is sharing third-running spot with idle Converge on identical 6-2 slates.
"Eastern is a team that has tough guards and they're No. 1 in the league in 3-point percentage (39.68%}," said Trillo on the eve of the match.
"They have quality imports, they have quality players," added Trillo. "They're pretty decent defensively, but the one thing that really strikes me is, magaling talagang kumamada mga tirador nila. Pati 4s nila tumitira from 3."
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Helping ease some of Trillo's worries is the likes of Brandon Bates, CJ Cansino and Jolo Mendoza finally seeing action after being sidelined by injuries since the start of the conference.
Raymond Almazan is also back in harness from a sprain while Chris Banchero and Allein Maliksi have had enough time to get their rhythm back after seeing action for the first time last Christmas in a 94-110 loss to Converge.
"Parang refreshed sila and lahat nag-e-ensayo na," related Trillo, whose team plunged right back into practice on Dec. 30 and 31 before taking a break and resuming their sessions last Thursday.
"Some, like Jolo and CJ, hindi pa 100%, pero nice to have them back," Trillo also said before adding: "The concern, really, is a little bit of adjustment sa rotation kasi marami nang bumalik."
For Trillo, having more players to field is certainly a big plus since the Eastern game kicks off a tough stretch for Meralco in which it has to play five games in 14 days. Next up for the Bolts are TNT (Jan. 7), NLEX (Jan. 10), NorthPort (Jan. 14) and San Miguel Beer (Jan. 18) before they go on a 10-day break.
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Fine tuning their Bolts' defense is the work currently cut out for Trillo and active consultant Nenad Vucinic, a need brought to the fore by that loss to Converge that came on the heels of a 98-114 defeat to Blackwater.
"Opensa nandoon na, although minsan hindi lang talaga umiikot bola. Pero we're 12th in the league right now in terms of defense. We give up 107 points now, pero alam naman namin that we're better than that," said Trillo. (NC)
