MANILA, Philippines—It could’ve boiled down to one final shot, but fate wasn’t on the side of Meralco and Allen Durham.
Coming off his team’s final timeout, Durham drove hard to the hoop only to meet Japeth Aguilar who thwarted his layup with around 13 seconds left and preserve Barangay Ginebra’s 89-87 lead.
Durham, however, felt that the block on him wasn’t as clean as it ought to be after video replays showed that Aguilar’s right arm was over his right shoulder.
“I mean the videos made it look like a foul, I mean he was all over my shoulder but you know I guess the refs said he got more ball than body so you just got to bounce back from that,” said Durham after the Bolts’ 91-87 loss to the Gin Kings Tuesday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Durham finished with 25 points, 18 rebounds, and 10 assists, but he struggled mightily from the floor going 10-of-26 from the field and scoring just three points in the fourth.
“I myself have to shoot better, we got great contribution from our guys but I didn’t perform to the best of my ability, and I got to be better for Game 2,” said Durham.
Chris Newsome, who had nine points in the fourth, finished with 24 points and eight boards while Raymond Almazan had a double-double of 20 points and 13 rebounds.
Meralco’s offense, however, looked stiff in the fourth quarter with Newsome the only one who seemed to carry the load.
Durham, though, discounted the notion of their offense getting stagnant.
“We’re working on it, it wasn’t as stagnant as we’re really trying to focus on people and what we wanted to attack,” said Durham. “It’s just that last minute turnover we had and get to clean up some little minor things.”