After bowing to Ginebra anew, Allen Durham turns attention to Meralco’s EASL campaign

Just on to the next for ‘Hulk’

ALLEN Durham is trying to move on as swiftly as how Meralco’s PBA Governors’ Cup quarterfinals campaign came to an end, as the Bolts shift their focus to the East Asia Super League.

The Meralco import suffered a familiar disappointment after they surrendered to longtime tormentor Barangay Ginebra, which swept their best-of-five series with a 113-106 win in Game Three on Monday at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

The Bolts, however, have little time to lick their wounds as they open their EASL campaign on Wednesday night against the Macau Black Bears at the Mall of Asia Arena.

“We got to forget about this,” Durham said about their loss to the Gin Kings. “Obviously, it’s disappointing, but we can’t let this hold in our minds and we got to play a tough team in Macau. So we’ll look at film and see the mistakes we made and try to clean those up for Wednesday.”

Photo by: PBA Images

The hulking Durham is one of Meralco’s EASL reinforcements alongside DJ Kennedy and naturalized player Ange Kouame ahead of their 8 p.m. tip-off against the Black Bears.

Against Ginebra, Durham tried to will the Bolts to at least extend the series, dropping 38 points on 14-of-26 shooting, 13 boards, one assist, one steal, and one block in almost 40 minutes.

But as a unit, Meralco still failed to show a sense of urgency after wasting an early 12-point lead and allowing the Gin Kings to pull off a comeback.

“They just had a good run and we weren’t able to stop their run,” Durham said. “We kind of let one mistake turn into two mistakes into three mistakes, so we couldn’t stop their run and they hit some big shots down the stretch.”

Brownlee 4, Durham 0

And as always, the Gin Kings pulled their trump card in Justin Brownlee, who’s now 4-0 against Durham in their head-to-head playoff matchups after getting the better of him in the 2016, 2017, and 2019 Governors’ Cup Finals.

“He’s a great player,” Durham said of Brownlee. “I don’t know what else you want me to say to that. If you have a great player, you’re going to be a better team.”

“When you’re a good player, you want to play against the best and kind of see how you measure and stuff like that, so playing against JB is always good competition,” he added.

Photo by: PBA Images

Despite staying winless against Brownlee and Ginebra, Durham has no regrets.

“I can’t think of anything. In every series that we played, in every battle that we had, we had an opportunity to win, so you could go down the line and say, ‘What if this happened, what if that happened?’ But you literally do that with everything, so you can’t do that,” he said.

Is he willing to make another PBA return and try to beat the Gin Kings for a fifth time?

“Honestly, I don’t know,” the 36-year-old Durham admitted. “I got two kids at home, so they’re in that age where they need their dad, so I got to talk to my family and see what happens.”