Black sees long road ahead for Meralco
Meralco head coach Normal Black. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
After falling to Blackwater on Wednesday, Normal Black couldn’t help be but blunt when it came to describing Meralco’s performance.
“I’m not seeing any positives right now because we just lost,” he said.
The Bolts yielded a 92-90 setback to the cellar-dweller Elite in a game where they needed a torrid run to come back and compete down the stretch.
Trailing Blackwater by 18, 55-37, Meralco came back and even took the lead in the final 2:40.
Cliff Hodge gave Meralco a chance to force overtime after nailing a three-pointer with 6.6 to go, a a defensive breakdown on the side of the Bolts cost them the game as Carlo Lastimosa nailed the go-ahead bucket with 1.8 seconds to spare.
“I was happy with the second half and the fact that we did come back in the game and had a chance to win, but at the same time, I wasn’t happy with the first half because we were listless. We have a lot of things we have to work on,” said Black.
Meralco missed the services of Chris Newsome, who was ejected before the end of the first half.
But Black knows that with a rejigged roster comes growing pains, and that’s what Meralco is feeling right now.
” We got better team chemistry last year, even though we have better players this year. It may take some time, but time is what we have right now,” he said. “While we’re not happy with how we started, we just have to keep on working hard to improve.”
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