Even if San Miguel Alab Pilipinas got Game One of the 8th ASEAN Basketball League Finals, Renaldo Balkman came out of the dugout a little cranky. He was not satisfied with what he had seen from himself and the team as far as defense was concerned.
Alab won in overtime, 143-130, over Mono Vampire BC, and that is where the problem lies: it gave up that many points. This was the most points Alab had given up in its two-year stay in the regional league.
“I don’t think we played the way we’re supposed to play,” said Balkman, who had 39 points, 15 rebounds, four assists, two steals, and two blocks in the win at the Santa Rosa Multi-Purpose Complex in Santa Rosa, Laguna.
“We’re a defensive team, and that shouldn’t be happening with us.
“We won the game, but that’s not us — we’ve never given up that many points this whole year,” he added. “We gotta back and say ‘know what, we can’t give them a hundred and thirty some points. We can’t give up 60 points in a quarter.'”
Even Alab head coach Jimmy Alapag rued the way his men executed on the defensive end, as they allowed Mono to show that they are the most efficient team in the league this season by shooting 51 percent from the floor.
Mono’s starters all finished in double digits, with Mike Singletary leading them with 42 points; Paul Zamar supplying 25 markers; 7-foot-5 Sam Deguara having 21 points; Jason Brickman added 15 points; and Darongpan Apiromvilaichai chipping in 14 points.
“I’m definitely are not happy giving up 130 points,” said the first-year coach.
Still, the 6-foot-8 Balkman was proud of the way they came out in the end to get the win, as they were already presumed dead when they went down, 120-116, with 19 seconds left in the fourth, only for Brownlee and Balkman to save the day.
Brownlee nailed a big triple with 15 seconds to go, and Balkman made a putback off of Brownlee’s miss with just 1.3 ticks left to force an extra period.
“We started off kinda slow, but we came out at the end of the game and we finished it off,” said the 33-year-old forward out of Puerto Rico. “Justin hit the big three — big shot — and it gave us our confidence back up.
“I just knew in my mind that hey, if we’re going into overtime, it’s gonna be over. We took it into overtime and that was our goal.”
Alab will now look to post a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series on Wednesday, April 25, still in Laguna. And for Balkman, he hopes that their fans will be faithful enough to stick with them through thick and thin.
“We were down four with 19 seconds and everybody walking out like we’ve lost the game — we gotta stick together in those times!,” said the former NBA cager. “But it’s all good, we came up with the win, we gotta come back on Wednesday.
“We’ll do a better job.”
