Alaska Aces-Star Hotshots Game 2 Additional Quotes
Unlike in the series opener, the Alaska Aces cruised past the Star Hotshots in Game 2 of their PBA Governors’ Cup semi-final Friday night, 95-74. The Aces garnered a 2-0 lead and can close the series on Sunday.
Four players finished in double digits for the Aces led by Romeo Travis’ 19 points, but it was defense that propelled the Aces to victory. The team limited the Hotshots to 32 points in the second half and out-rebounded them for the second game in a row, 49-32.
Here are some quotes from last night:
Alex Compton
Photo from PBA Images
Alex Compton recalled a specific moment six years ago in the NBTC (National Basketball Training Center) spearheaded by Eric Altamirano where he was also a part of, and said Tim Cone gave a talk on defense.
“On that hour I got a lot as an assistant coach and one of the things that he said was defense is really about character. Karamihan ng stats, they are offense. Most people look to the glory boy as the guy who scored. It is never the guy who was scoreless but played awesome defensively. I remember coach Tim talking about that. As a young coach it left an impression on me. I believe in the second half, we asserted ourselves defensively. That was tremendous.”
On the mindset heading into Game 3: “All we’ve done is won two games. Work is not yet finished. It is not finished until we win Game 3. After that it is finished and we worry about the finals. But we cannot celebrate. We have done nothing yet. We have practice tomorrow.”
Marqus Blakely
On what went wrong anew for the Hotshots: “Offensively we were a little scrambled. They were hitting shots but we were not being physical in the beginning. We allowed them to get to our spots and we started feeling it. It was hard to stop down the stretch. We could have done more but tonight we struggled to find the right lineups and defensively we were not focused. Whatever it takes as this point, we don’t have anymore life so we have to buckle down from the first five minutes.”
