ANOTHER 48 minutes
Aside from being a brilliant coach, Chot Reyes—who coined the battle cry ‘Puso!’ for Gilas Pilipinas—does a lot of motivational speaking on the side.
But he said he did not say anything to his TNT Tropang 5G crew for them not to fall into a false sense of security following a 23-point Game 4 win that tied up their PBA Philippine Cup title series with defending champion San Miguel Beer on Wednesday night.
“Not at all,” Reyes told the Inquirer over the phone on Thursday, just after giving out one of those talks, when asked if his crew would come into the critical fifth game, slated at 7:30 p.m. at the Ynares Center in Antipolo, with confidence that could backfire.
“Playing 48 solid minutes (every game) is all we want to do since this series started,” he said. “That was our problem in the two losses—we started bad and had a hard time the rest of those games.”
Super sharp
The Tropang 5G were super sharp all of Wednesday and the Beermen never really had a chance on the same night June Mar Fajardo won a 13th Best Player of the Conference citation that made the San Miguel cornerstone the first candidate for the season-ending MVP, which could be his record-extending 10th.
“We were very different in Game 4,” Reyes went on. “In Game 3, we were down 17 at one point (early), went on to lead by 11, so that’s a plus-28 for us.
“If we can take care of leads, we can spare ourselves endgames like that of Game 3.”
TNT fell behind in the best-of-seven series, 2-1, after Sunday, when the Beermen rallied from an 89-86 deficit in the final 50 seconds after CJ Perez hit seven straight points—from just two outside bombs—that resulted in a 95-89 San Miguel win.
“If we had taken care of that plus-28, there wouldn’t have been a final minute (opportunity for San Miguel) like that for Game 3,” Reyes said.
Reyes and his crew are trying to win the title that was denied them by the Beermen in completing a Grand Slam last season and they will come into Game 5 with some psychological edge after leading by as large as 35 in the third quarter on Wednesday.
“It’s down to a best-of-three now, we have a big chance,” Calvin Oftana, the Gilas Pilipinas stalwart, said in Filipino after draining five triples on the way to 29 points in Game 4.
Injured swingman
RR Pogoy, the other half of the deadly tandem of swingmen that Reyes has, is listed as doubtful after not returning in the first quarter after less than five minutes of action.
“That’s so sad that we lost him,” Oftana went on. “But it’s the next man up mentality for us. Whoever is available should double their efforts.”
Fajardo had 18 points and 16 rebounds to lead the Beermen, while Don Trollano chipped in 13. Perez had just 11 points on 4-of-15 shooting and is due for another great offensive night, which TNT must be wary of.
