Meralco Bolts import Allen Durham, who helped his team muscle past TNT KaTropa in the semifinals looks forward to another blockbuster championship against Barangay Ginebra led by their import talented import Justin Brownlee.
Meralco and Ginebra battle in their third PBA Governors Cup finals in four years. The Gin Kings beat the Bolts in 2016 and 2017. Both teams were eliminated in 2018 with Magnolia eventually emerging as champion.
“It’s going to be fun. As a competitor, you want to play against the best and he (Brownlee) has shown he’s one of the best imports in the PBA year after year so definitely, it will be a battle,” said Durham.
Brownlee and the Gin Kings beat Durham and the Bolts twice but the Meralco reinforcement is confident that they can turn the tables on their tormentors this time around.
Meralco has since added big man Raymond Almazan, shooter Allein Maliksi and defense-oriented Bong Quinto.
“Almazan, Maliksi and Quinto have added to our depth compared to when we faced Ginebra in the past. They’ve made us a better team, even though Allein’s still adjusting to the team as he just joined us this conference,” said Meralco coach Norman Black.
The Meralco mentor added that they match up better against Ginebra which plays an inside-out game, relying heavily on their big men Greg Slaughter and Japeth Aguilar. I
“I actually think they (Ginebra) are a better match-up for us compared to TNT (in the semis), who got shooters all over, and I think we’ll be able to use (Raymond) Almazan a little bit more as they’re a bigger team,” said Black.
“The TNT series was a tough matchup for Almazan because their big was (Troy) Rosario, he’s more of a stretch four, so Almazan had a tough time offensively and defensively ‘coz he had to stay with the import (KJ McDaniels) the whole time and Rosario can stretch out to the three-point line the entire game.”