TNT head coach Chot Reyes admitted that his wards felt devastated with the disastrous collapse that took place in Game Two of their 2021 Honda PBA Philippine Cup semifinal series with San Miguel Beer last Wednesday.
Their rivals bagged home the 98-96 victory thanks to Marcio Lassiter’s game-winner, but not before coming back from 21 down that saw ex-Tropang Giga guard Terrence Romeo spearhead the assault in the fourth quarter.
Photo by PBA Images
But as they say, mindset is everything.
“We were very sad and disappointed after that Game Two loss, but I just reminded the players that even if we take a look before the series and you say lalabanan natin ang San Miguel na wala si Kelly, after two games it was one-all,” narrated the outspoken bench tactician. “Masaya tayo d’on, ‘di ba? Malungkot ba tayo doon o masaya? Then sila nagsabi, ‘Masaya tayo.’ I just reminded them of that. One-all naman ngayon eh.
“Masakit lang ‘yung pagkatalo, but in the end, it’s still the same. It’s one-all. So we should still be very happy about where we are and our position.”
Reyes is drawing positivity from the fact that the Tropang Giga are competing despite the absence of Kelly Williams, who remains under the league’s health and safety protocols. And his simple reminder boded well for them.
Two nights after that stinging defeat, the MVP Group’s crown jewel bounced back in the best way possible, scoring a wire-to-wire 115-98 victory over their corporate rivals to regain control of the best-of-seven battle.
Photo by PBA Images
“Sabi namin, let’s just look forward to Game Three and figure out how we can be better. We cannot be better than this team in terms of talent and size, so we just focused on putting in better effort,” Reyes said.
“It’s just better effort, better collaboration, better teamsmanship and better communication,” the league’s only five-time Coach of the Year continued.
“I think in the end, that’s what happened.”
Effort was definitely shown by the Texters in the victory, with guys like Roger Pogoy (26 points) and slotman Poy Erram (21 points, 13 rebounds) turning in conference-best performances each to lead the rout.
Mikey Williams found his groove again with 20 points. Then there’s also Troy Rosario helping out the frontcourt hold their ground sans Williams with 14 points and seven rebounds, while young gun Kib Montalbo added 11.
All but three scored at least two in the win.
More importantly, though, TNT did not lose any lead this time around. It began the game with 11 consecutive points, and went on to lead by as many as 25 points in the final period — another thing Reyes was glad about.
“In both games, we got beat in the fourth quarter,” he recalled. “So our focus now was to come out and play the full 48 minutes. And kanina after the third quarter when we had the lead, ‘yun lang naman ang pinag-usapan namin.
“We just reminded them, ‘Okay, ito na naman tayo. Starting the fourth quarter, the last 12 minutes, let’s focus, lock in and remember what we talked about: we need to be able to close out games. We need to play a complete 48 minutes’,” he continued.
“And to the credit of the players, they responded.”
