After losing a tightly-contested series opener to the Alaska Aces, 97-94 on Monday night, Meralco head coach Norman Black said the Bolts need to move the ball better in Game Two.
Black emphasized that much of Meralco’s offense starts with how import Arinze Onuaku approaches the defense, and he said the reinforcement has to do a better job reading the floor.
“They mixed up their defense against Arinze. They doubled him sometimes, they went after him right away sometimes. Arinze just has to do a better job of reading where the defense is coming from. If it is not coming, he can attack immediately,” Black shared.
“If it is coming, he has to know where to pass the basketball. He has the ball all the time so he just has to do a better job being aggressive offensively and also reading the defense.”
Despite finishing with 11 points and 18 rebounds, Onuaku only had two assists and had four turnovers. Alaska kept overloading the strong side as they double-teamed Onuaku, even switching to a zone defense from time to time to clog the paint.
Black said the way to counter such defensive scheme is to move the ball better and for Onuaku to make quicker passes.
“I think the way we can beat that is, because all of this is happening against Arinze, we just have to move the ball quicker, a lot of times he waits against the double team and when he passes the ball, by then, he is already struggling where to get rid of it. So he has to read where the defense is coming from,” Black said.
“He has to get rid of it early and not wait to pass the basketball. That way, we will be able to take advantage of the weak side being open. The longer he holds and the more he struggles to get out of the double team, by the time the ball has moved to the weak side, they have already recovered defensively. So, for us to take advantage of straight passes, there has to be quick ball movement.”
The mentor also mentioned the Bolts’ 22 turnovers, which led to 28 turnover points for the Aces, as something costly in the match and something they “need to correct” in Game 2.
“We turned the ball over 22 times. That is probably a big difference in the game. The fact that we could not take care of the basketball,” Black added. “I can’t look past the turnovers. Some of them were not really forced. Some are careless plays which we can’t do against a good defensive team.”
“That is something we need to correct on Wednesday.”
