Make it a bitter Valentine’s night for Larry Fonacier and the whole TNT Katropa squad.
Aside from dropping Game 4, 97-86, and allowing San Miguel Beermen to tie the best-of-seven series at two games apiece, Fonacier was clearly disgusted with the way Tuesday night’s officiating went.
The 34-year-old led TNT with 15 markers, which in his words is something that “doesn’t matter” since they lost. He only had two fouls in the whole 29:56 minutes he played, but he was assessed with a technical foul when things were starting to heat up between the two squads.
In the 6:33 mark of the final period with TNT behind, 85-74, Fonacier was slapped with a technical foul after reenacting to a referee how he was shoved by Marcio Lassiter to get himself free.
“I just wanted to show the ref what happened. Maybe he didn’t see it?
“The calls have been consistent the whole conference, so I’m wondering why that call wasn’t called. It wasn’t called. That’s how it is,” lamented Fonacier.
The seven-time PBA champion also iterated that he never said something disrespectful to the referee, pointing out that his main aim had been to explain to them what transpired.
“No I didn’t [say anything]. I just showed them what happened,” said the 11-year veteran.
As a whole, TNT committed 30 team fouls, six fouls more than SMB’s 24. With such difference, visits to the charity stripe yielded a huge disparity. TNT only shot 8-of-12, while San Miguel had 19-of-24 from the lone.
The differences mentioned clearly had an impact to TNT’s series-tying loss. However, Fonacier said that those instances are not enough to put the blame on.
“You know, maybe the technical helped? I don’t know. I think the momentum went to our side for awhile. It was a little too late though. We hurt ourselves early in the game,” the 2012 Philippine Cup Finals Most Valuable Player remarked.
But the damage has already been done, and the series now goes to a virtual best-of-three. And for the veteran three-point sniper, all that the Katropa has to do now is to stay on track and play the best way they can as Game 5 looms.
“For us, we’re just focusing on playing our best. [There are] things we can’t control, [and] we can’t do anything about it,” declared Fonacier.
