Moments after Maverick Ahanmisi dropped a career-high 23 points to help the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters eke out a 98-94 decision over the San Miguel Beermen in Game One of the squads’ PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals series Sunday night, the third overall pick of this year’s rookie draft still couldn’t believe he had ended up being the closer of the crucial match.
“To be honest, the last time was high school. In college, I played a lot of crucial minutes but not to this magnitude. From day one, when coach Yeng drafted me, I owe my respect to him for trusting me,” said Ahanmisi when asked if he has played a similar situation where the stakes are high before.
“Definitely not. There are so many good players on this team. You have a bunch of Gilas players. So I definitely did not expect to be a closer on any other day but those guys, they give confidence to me to play my game.”
Ahanmisi added nine rebounds and four assists, shooting 8-for-13 from the field. He scored eight points in the fourth period, including three free throws towards the end of the match that gave the Elasto Painters the all-important margin. The rookie played 29:27 minutes, the second-most, just behind Jeff Chan, who logged 29:50.
Ahanmisi shared that it hadn’t been his intention to score much, but he eventually fed off the team’s excellent ball movement.
“My shots were going down. I really did not have the mentality I was going to score. Off the bench, I was just trying to come in and provide as much energy as I could,” he shared.
“We don’t really worry about the score. We just have to play until the buzzer ends. Coach Yeng (Guiao) prepared us for no matter what the score is. And he uses his whole bench so we don’t get tired.”
The rookie also thanked the coaching staff for trusting him to play clutch-time minutes in the series opener.
“Coach Yeng does not put that much pressure on me as a rookie to perform. I just saw I can play my game and that is a testament to my teammates and the coaching staff,” he said.
Even the Elasto Painters mentor had high praise for Ahanmisi not only for his performance in Game One, but for stepping up throughout the conference, providing star guard Paul Lee enough room to recover, and getting back into top shape in the process. Moreover, his two huge performances last week earned Ahanmishi his first Accel-PBA Press Corps Player of the Week for the period of April 18-24, beating Alaska big man Eric Menk and Calvin Abueva as well as San Miguel’s Chris Ross.
“He is a serious candidate for Rookie of the Year. He has given us steady minutes. He plays a balanced game, offense and defense. He has given Paul (Lee) the slack he needs. Walang pressure ngayon kay Paul so Paul can take his time and continue healing without sacrificing the team’s chances of winning,” Guiao said.
In the conference, Ahanmisi has averaged 9.4 PPG, 3.8 RPG, and 3.2 APG, while shooting over 43% from three-point area.
“So ang laking bagay na he is stepping up. He is not playing like a rookie nga. He is playing like a veteran and he is getting a lot of respect from his teammates as a rookie,” Guiao added.
Moving forward, Ahanmisi says if his team remains full-strength, they have a good shot at winning the series.
“If we stay healthy, we are a pretty strong team. We are not the biggest but we are one of the scrappiest teams. You can never count us out.”
