Newsome, Meralco Bolts try to stay positive amid losses

Naveen Ganglani

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Newsome, Meralco Bolts try to stay positive amid losses
Newsome is enjoying a solid start to the season, but the same cannot be said for his team

MANILA, Philippines – Chris Newsome and the Meralco Bolts suffered their fourth straight defeat when they lost to the GlobalPort Batang Pier on Friday, January 6, at the Mall of Asia Arena. The result dropped Meralco to 2-5 halfway through the Philippine Cup eliminations, which is disappointing given they were just in the Governors’ Cup Finals a few months back.

“It’s always tough, of course, it’s a roller-coaster ride. You have highs and you have lows,” Newsome commented following the contest.

“One thing we’re just trying to do is learn how to be better in the Philippine Cup and what are the things we can improve on.”

It’s starting to feel like deja vu for Meralco, which went a league-worst 1-10 during last season’s PBA Philippine Cup and missed the playoffs. The multiple defeats this time are starting to take a toll on the Bolts, Newsome admits, although the roster is trying to remain optimistic with 4 games left on the schedule.

“It’s tough whenever you’re losing. Everyone seems to kind of get down sometimes. We’re just emphasizing ‘stay positive,’ because it’s not a situation we haven’t been in before,” said the PBA’s reigning Rookie of the Year, who’s averaging 15.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 5.3 assists a game this season.

“We’ve been in this situation last year and we were able to gut it out and stick to it and eventually we ended up with a finals appearance so it’s definitely familiar territory.”

Meralco has actually been better than what its record shows. Outside of the Bolts’ defeat to league-leading San Miguel, each loss has been by single digits, with two of those games by only a margin of two points in the final score.

Newsome points to the team’s slow starts as a reason for the bad showing this conference. In the game against the Batang Pier, the Bolts fell behind by 7 at the end of the first quarter, and by halftime, that lead had extended to 10 before Meralco crawled back in the third period to make it a tight contest late.

Unfortunately for them, Terrence Romeo, who had 27 points, provided the finishing touches.

“A lot of times it comes down to we had a bad start, so we’re trying to dig ourselves out of a hole, and claw back and we make it a game and then we tend to let up…” said the former Ateneo Blue Eagle.

“We have to be better at the beginning of the game and we also have to be able to close games.”

Newsome admits his team’s current predicament is not one they imagined before the season kicked off. But despite the troubling times, he says they have to continue trusting in what they have.

“Not a territory we’d imagine ourselves to be in or not the ideal territory we want to be in, but again it’s a process and we just got to trust what we’re doing, trust our coaches, and trust our coaching staff and just keep on working hard.” – Rappler.com

Add a comment

Sort by

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Summarize this article with AI

How does this make you feel?

Loading
Download the Rappler App!