CHEMISTRY is the primary problem of Meralco in its opening-day loss at the 2025 Basketball Champions League Asia in Dubai.

Meralco active consultant Nenad Vucinic admitted they need to speed up the process of getting accustomed to playing with their three imports Jordon Varnado, Glynn Watson, and John Egbunu.

The three combined for 49 points with Egbunu hauling down a team-high 11 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough as the Bolts bowed to Shabab Al Ahli, 101-87, on Saturday.

Vucinic said the team didn’t have enough time to practice with the three imports, especially since the Bolts are also in the middle of the PBA Philippine Cup campaign where it is an all-local tournament.

“It’s difficult for us to get some cohesion because we had three [new] players. At the moment, we are playing in the Philippines without any foreign players in our season,” said Vucinic, who serves as the head coach of the Bolts in the BCL Asia.

The Bolts do not have the luxury of time as they take on Japan B.League champion Utsunomiya Brex on Sunday, 6 p.m. (Sunday, 10 p.m. Manila time)

PHOTO: fiba.basketball

“We’ve got three good players with us but it’s very hard to get cohesion at the moment. We are hoping that as the tournament goes, we are going to get better,” said Vucinic.

The Bolts are looking for a respectable within the top eight among the nine teams that were grouped into three for the tournament.

“We are playing a very good team (Utsunomiya Brex). The Japanese team is well-coached. They have very good shooters. It’s going to be a tough task. But I’m confident we can play much-better than we did today and hopefully have a chance to win,” said Vucinic.

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