Scottie Thompson was responsible for a major defensive adjustment that greatly enabled GInebra to overcome TNT for a triumphant Christmas night.
Head coach Tim Cone revealed that the former league MVP himself requested to pick Calvin Oftana on defense during the fourth quarter as the Tropang Giga star was making it a long night for the reigning conference champions.
“He actually asked for it,” said the league’s winningest mentor shortly after their 86-78 comeback win at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
Cone said that the Kings’ attention was fully on Oftana upon knowing that TNT wouldn’t have Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Jayson Castro, but the team could only concede with how skilled the young winger was in generating offense.
In fact, he already had 21 points across the first three quarters, including 10 and nine in the middle chapters that saw his crew lead by as many as 13.
“We knew Jayson wasn’t gonna play and we knew Rondae wasn’t gonna play, we could put our full attention to Calvin. And Calvin still found ways to get free and get open,” Cone said. “A lot of credit to him.”
But Thompson came up with the idea to guard Oftana during a timeout in the final period and the former NCAA MVP with San Beda would find it hard to get his usual looks, no thanks to the veteran guard’s peskiness.
“Down the stretch gusto ko lang maging close kami ni Calvin sa laro,” quipped Thompson, who finished with 12 points in the victory.
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He only scored six in the fourth, the last of which he made at the 2:30-mark off an attack to the hoop to stop the bleeding for TNT but it was all too little, too late as the crowd darlings were already in the middle of a furious rally.
Thompson himself keyed that assault as well, nailing a pair of triples inside the final 1:34 to deal the haymakers that brought their rivals to sleep.
It was an easy decision for the Davaoeno star to pick Oftana because of the familiarity he has with him due to their Gilas Pilipinas stint together.
“They’re best buddies with the Gilas team and they’re roommates with the Gilas team, and they’re really, really tight,” said Cone.
“He was getting loose and during a timeout, I think it was about seven minutes to go, maybe five minutes to go, he said, ‘Let me have him, let me have Calvin.’ And so we switched him over to Calvin,” he added.
It was indeed a huge suggestion from Thompson and the champion bench tactician couldn’t be any prouder of that idea.
“Obviously it was a great coaching move by Scottie to do that,” he said in between chuckles, “and he took the challenge down the stretch.”
Thompson, though, gave credit to Ginebra team governor Alfrancis Chua for trusting him enough to defend the much taller Oftana.
“Tinanong ako ni Boss Al kung kaya ko ba bantayan si Calvin, nabigyan ako ng confidence na bantayan si Calvin down the stretch,” he said.
