"Our goal is to start off on the right foot," said Gregorio in an interview yesterday.

The Bolts have had little respite since ending the Commissioner’s Cup at seventh last April 2 and Gregorio explained all the work is geared towards improving the often-changing team’s cohesion.

"We’re still working on chemistry, so I told the team at the end of our campaign in the second conference that we will only have a seven-day break and it is back to practice again," he related.

"You simply can’t fast-track anything, especially chemistry, and that’s the main reason why we’re putting in the extra work," he added.

Meralco is set to leave for Qatar to play in an invitational tournament. The team leaves tomorrow and will be back May 3.

Gregorio has also decided to keep prolific scorer Champ Oguchi as the team’s import, to do away with the getting-to-know-you phase a new reinforcement requires.

A slow start has been the bane of the Bolts since taking over the Sta. Lucia Realty franchise at the end of last season. Gregorio pointed out the necessary player movements he had to do, to make the team more competitive, as main culprit.

"I was keeping tabs on what we’ve been doing since the start of this franchise and we already have had 23 transactions. So I knew we were going to be in a very rough situation," he said.

The ill effects hardly showed in the season-opening Philippine Cup, although the Bolts failed to make it past the quarterfinals and wound up fifth.

After acquiring seven new players just before the start of the Commissioner’s Cup, lack of chemistry reared its ugly head anew. Meralco started out 0-4, including a final-second loss to San Miguel Beer and an overtime defeat to Alaska, which played with an import only in the first four minutes of the game.

The last quarterfinalist, Rain or Shine, made it through with just four wins.

"It was really frustrating," Gregorio admitted. It was pretty much like what Meralco did in the Philippine Cup, when it started out 2-5, recovered and went 5-2. But it was a longer conference.

Now comes the Governors, which, like the Commissioner’s, will have an even shorter eight-game eliminations since there are only nine participating teams.

Gregorio knows there will be not much room for any error.

"Roster power will still be No. 1, but I don’t see any player movements right now," he said.

"No matter the movements others may make to come up with a more potent lineup it still requires time to gel."

Noli Cortez, Business Malaya