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Olmin Leyba - The Philippine Star
May 11, 2025 | 12:00am
TNT Tropang Giga head coach Chot Reyes.
s PBA media bureau
MANILA, Philippines — Grand slam-seeking TNT and defending PBA Philippine Cup champion Meralco engage in a livewire clash of two heavyweights today at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
Game time is 7:30 p.m. with the Tropang 5G (2-3) seeking to continue their turnaround from a woeful 0-3 start and the Bolts (3-3) aiming for back-to-back after arresting a three-game skid last Friday.
San Miguel Beer (3-2) and Phoenix (2-3), meanwhile, battle it out at 5 p.m.
After what coach Chot Reyes described as “three terrible losses” to start the conference, TNT has rediscovered its rhythm and familiar grit and posted a massive breakthrough win over powerhouse San Miguel Beer, 89-84, promptly followed by a thorough 110-74 shellacking of Terrafirma.
Reyes maintained it’s “too early to tell” if the reigning Governors’ Cup and Commissioner’s Cup kingpins are now back in their old deadly selves.
“We have to play a lot more tougher games. But the good thing about this victory (over Terrafirma) was we were able to rest a lot of our players because we have a very big game on Sunday against a very tough team (Meralco),” he said.
“The sudden revision in schedule really kind of caught us by surprise. So now we wanted to use this as a jump-off point for Sunday, really preparatory to Sunday. Not that we were overlooking Terrafirma but ‘yun ang maganda sa nilaro ng players today, it allowed us to rest our main players in preparation for Sunday.”
The Bolts, in contrast, had to work extra hard in rallying from 15 points down and stealing a 105-104 win over NorthPort two nights before tackling the Tropang 5G.
“Just excellent fight through from our guys. We’re struggling. We know that the last two games have been tough. We’ve been getting beat black and blue, but sometimes when things are not going your way, you have to gut it out. And that’s what we did,” said Meralco coach Luigi Trillo.
As they also take the mantle as the Philippines’ representative to the Basketball Champions League in June, the Bolts are bracing for a killer schedule in the next three weeks.
After TNT, Meralco plays Magnolia (May 14), Blackwater (May 21), NLEX (May 25) and Ginebra (May 30) before taking its act to the Champions League on June 9 to 15.
