There’s no denying that Chris Daniels has been consistent so far for Alaska. But on Saturday night against TNT, he struggled.
Daniels produced 23 points and 19 rebounds. But unfortunately, his whopping turnovers – nine of the Aces’ 27 – negated his performance.
Alaska lost to the KaTropa, 85-99. They have fallen to 1-2 in the 2019 PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
Daniels’ turnovers have seen an increase. After committing just one error in their opener versus Columbian last Sunday, he has now committed a total of 13 in two games.
Still, when asked if the team is considering switching imports while it’s still early in the mid-season tournament, Alaska head coach Alex Compton said he isn’t ringing the alarm yet.
“Not right now.
“It’s one of those games where we had twenty-seven turnovers, and I think Chris had nine of them. And that really hurt. That was a big part of the game,” Compton said of the 35-year-old Daniels, who’s now averaging 23.0 points and 16.0 rebounds.
The outspoken bench strategist, however, said that their turnovers were not a result of their carelessness in handling the ball, but rather due to the KaTropa’s suffocating defense.
And Terrence Jones as well, added Compton, as the former NBA cager also made life harder for Alaska as he torched them with 43 points, 22 rebounds, and five assists.
“Our turnovers were not mainly careless. It felt that they were mostly forced by their defense. I thought that was the story of the game: Terrence Jones and our turnovers,” he said.
Alaska will play NLEX Road Warriors next, on May 29, Wednesday. Though the latter are 0-2 right now, Compton is wary, especially with the expected arrival of import Tony Mitchell.
“We got a huge game against NLEX, who I thought did a great job without an import,” said Compton, referring to NLEX’s narrow 79-83 loss to NorthPort on Saturday where they played all-Filipino.
“Coach Yeng [Guiao] is always good at getting his guys going. They’ll have a new import. Tony Mitchell is a tremendous athlete. We’ll see, that’s a huge game for us.”
