San Miguel head coach Leo Austria explained his decision not to call a timeout down the stretch of an eventual loss to Bay Area that ultimately ousted the Beermen from the PBA Commissioner’s Cup kingship, Wednesday night.
The champion mentor had two left and had the chance to draw up a play when his side regained possession with 12 seconds left, but none from the team called for any and the five on the floor tried to generate something themselves.
SMB lost, 94-92, kissing goodbye to their hopes of pulling off another ‘Beeracle’ and, worse, to their reign as champions of the mid-season conference.
Recalling that sequence, Austria said that he saw his Beermen had the edge in transition; it’s just that the defense was able to catch up quickly.
“We had a chance to tie or win the game. Although I had two timeouts left, I saw the advantage during the transition. We had the numbers but they were able to recover,” he said moments after the Semis Game 4 loss at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Looking back, San Miguel had the opportunity to run the floor when June Mar Fajardo secured the rock following Zhu Songwei’s missed layup and then passed it off to Simon Enciso to push forward.
However, two Dragons were already set up on defense, namely Kobey Lam and Andrew Nicholson, making Enciso stop with eight seconds to go before handing it off to CJ Perez, who then tried from deep but missed.
Fajardo was able to get the offensive board and immediately fired a fadeaway jumper, but missed as well as the final buzzer sounded.
“I think we took [two] shots in transition,” recalled Austria. “Unfortunately, we’re not able to snatch that game, to win the game, to extend the series.”
Nonetheless, the four-time Coach of the Year remains proud of his charges for reaching this point despite the challenges — from the import switches early, to him missing games due to health and safety protocols, and injuries to key cogs.
“I’m still very proud of the team. Because of what happened in the all-Filipino and then the second conference, from the very start it’s really tough for us,” he said.
“Originally Devon is not our import, alam naman nating lahat ano. And then we changed. We’re so thankful for Devon because he gave us a ride going to the semifinals, ano. Unfortunately we came up short in this game.
“I think we have to dwell on those positives that could inspire us to get back, especially [in the] next conference,” said Austria.
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