Chris McCullough backed up his guarantee by showing his old form to lead TNT closer to the PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup Finals on Friday.
The comebacking import previously said that “it will be scary” once he gets his rhythm back after being away from basketball for weeks, and the way he performed in Game 5 should be enough proof that he’s done as much.
He dropped 42 points and 11 rebounds, 17 of which he made in the deciding period, to power their breakaway toward the 3-2 semis lead against Meralco.
“I just needed to get my legs under me,” the 31-year-old said after the match at the SMART Araneta Coliseum. “I had two weeks off from playing basketball, so I’m just happy to be back, happy to be playing. Job’s not finished, though.”
McCullough shot much more efficiently in the crucial win as compared to his TNT debut back last Wednesday under the same Big Dome lights.
After going 7-of-22 from the floor, he went 16-of-28 this time, highlighted by a 3-of-5 clip from three–that, after missing all of his five triples in Game 4.
(C) PVL Images
“The last game he just had two practices with us eh?” head coach Chot Reyes said. “Now he’s had the benefit of a game and an extra practice. Number one, he gets acclimatized to his teammates and what we want to do.
“And also, just getting back to the swing of things here in the PBA. You know this is a tough league. I thought we were able to do a good job of pacing him in the first half, and he had the legs in the fourth quarter.”
But it’s not just McCullough that’s adjusted quite nicely with the Tropang 5G but the locals themselves as well, having seemingly overcome the challenges of adapting with a new import after figuring things out with Bol Bol.
That’s thanks to their agility to respond to such difficult situations–it has only been five days or less since the flagship MVP franchise began working with the former Commissioner’s Cup champion, San Miguel Beer.
And within that period, Game 4 was included, which, despite the result, was still taken by TNT positively as it gave the team a chance to expedite its adjustment process with the former NBA cager, who had 24 and nine that night.
“We knew there was going to be a period of adjustment,” Reyes said. “But we had a lot of positive things from our loss–I know it was a loss, but I said if we just took care of the ball a little better, we could still have pulled out a win.
“That gave us a lot of energy coming into this game because we knew even with the adjustments that we had to make, that we were still in that ball game, in Game 4, except for our turnovers,” he added as they had 15 TOs.
Now, Reyes is hoping that their Game 5 performance as a collective would be a sign of good things to come in their aim of going back to the Big Dance.
“Again, a lot of that (turnovers) is because of getting used to playing with each other, especially with Chris. So hopefully, this is the start,” he said.
