After receiving a 105-92 beat-down at the hands of the red-hot Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, players from the Phoenix Fuel Masters side of the SM Mall of Asia Arena slowly walked out of the locker room one-by-one with a grim looks on their faces. It was as if they had just passed by a funeral.
“There’s nothing really to talk about. Everyone’s frustrated,” admitted Matthew Wright, as Phoenix had lost their seventh straight game, Wednesday night.
Phoenix had a hopeful start to the conference, racing to a 2-0 slate. However, with the wins eluding the young franchise after that brief streak, management decided to make a few trades that landed them Jeff Chan and Dylan Ababou to try and offset the loss of Wright to Gilas duties. Moreover, an injury to Eugene Phelps forced Phoenix to pick up Brandon Brown.
With all these movements and transactions, familiarity has been scarce for the Fuel Masters. And the Filipino-Canadian rookie will be the first to admit that.
“This conference has been a pretty tough one for us,” confessed Wright, who is averaging 13.25 points and 5.5 rebounds this conference.
“It looks like we have a brand new team.
“But we just have to go out there and play,” the Gilas mainstay said.
With just two games left in their elimination round schedule, Wright remains hopeful that they can turn it up. But first the Fuel Masters need to utilize their two-week break to find themselves and, more importantly, familiarity.
“We just got to look in the mirror and do a lot of soul searching,” Wright declared.
“I don’t like long breaks [because] I feel like I got my timing back then we have two weeks off. Im’ma be staying in shape. We’re gonna practice and prepare for Rain or Shine because it’s basically a do-or-die. If we lose that, we’re done.”
