FOR Meralco, the road to the championship was bumpy. There were so many humps and potholes that if the team were made of lesser stuff, there would not have been a PBA championship to celebrate.
Looking back, the team's consultant, Serbian-New Zealand Nenad Vucinic, picked one game which he said was the turning point in the team's ascent to the top. It was not a win, it was a loss, to Converge - a team so bad it had not won a single game prior to meeting Meralco.
The loss came on April 21 when Converge stunned Meralco, 104-99, for its first win after eight straight losses. The defeat sent Meralco reeling. With a 3-5 record, the team slid to second to last in the standings, putting their playoff chances in extreme jeopardy.
READ Bryan Santos an unlikely hero as Converge stuns Meralco
Maybe just to be sure that indeed Meralco was in a precarious situation, Vucinic took a screenshot of the team standings on his mobile phone, perhaps to remind him there was work to be done.
“We were three rounds [games] to go in the second conference, we were second to the last,” said Vucinic. “I took a screenshot of that time when we were second to the last. We lost to Converge, a team that hadn’t won a game."
It was after that when the team came to life. With perhaps a bit of cajoling, a little pep talk and lots of practice and days of developing new plays, Meralco won the last three games of the eliminations and ended up No. 3, thanks also in part to a better quotient.
Vucinic said he was happy with the way the players responded to the defeat. Instead of wallowing in despair, the team woke up to the challenge.
“We were down and players could easily turn their backs. If we lost the next game, we wouldn’t have made it. We probably would have finished second to last," he said.
Meralco turnaround
“We won the three tough games against Phoenix, Magnolia, and San Miguel which was unbeaten. From then on, we were difficult to play against. That’s a credit to the players. They stuck to it and believed what we were teaching."
Meralco coach Luigi Trillo said the Bolts actually started preparing for the conference for only a few days. They had to take a little rest after competing in the EASL.
“We started out two or three days right before the season because we had to give them a break because we had so many leagues, EASL, Doha. Obviously, with that break, we got pushed into some games early,” said Trillo.
“We had to pivot and work through that. There were a lot of times that we were 1-3, 3-5, but our staff, helping each other out, challenging the guys, character all around. Credit the players too, they responded. It took a lot from them to get out of that hole,” said Trillo.
“For coach Nenad and us, it’s not about one or two games. The way I look at it, he builds programs and he really puts pressure on the guys because he demands it. I’m proud of the guys. We went through adversity,” he added.
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