Matthew Wright just could not believe his unceremonious exit from Phoenix Super LPG’s PBA Governors’ Cup quarterfinal duel with Magnolia, Friday night.
The Fuel Masters saw themselves without their main man with less than five minutes left in the third quarter when the 31-year-old got whistled for his sixth and final foul, as he tried to disrupt the shot of a driving Jio Jalalon.
Wright, who was even ribbed by close pal Calvin Abueva while on his way to the bench, left with just eight points on seven shots and seven assists.
He could only watch helplessly from the bench as his team got blown out by 39 points, 88-127, indeed a dejecting way for a team to end a campaign.
“I’ve never been fouled out in my life — like college, high school, batang li–I mean, never in my life I’ve been fouled out. And the speed I got fouled out was crazy,” he claimed moments after the match at SMART Araneta Coliseum.
Wright felt that his sudden exit sucked the energy of his squad altogether, leading to one of the league’s worst playoff losses in years.
“Really frustrating, especially [since] it’s a playoff game. A big crowd. I know that the crowd wanted a good game, but we lost by 40 points. I think that took us right out right there. That was all the momentum. I felt it right when I fouled out. Just the energy on our team, we’re done after that. I think we just got too discouraged. A lot of things didn’t go our way, a lot of calls, and then guys started getting discouraged,” he offered.
“I think our coaches were very angry, management, everyone’s getting mad at the officiating but we forgot to focus on, like, tryna stop these guys.”
The Fil-Canadian guard, however, doesn’t want to criticize whatsoever the way the officiating had gone, nor dwell on the loss itself. But he didn’t deny that it was, all in all, a ‘traumatic’ campaign for Phoenix this conference.
That’s how he described their situation owing to the personnel changes that the team went through, which saw them lose Calvin Abueva, Vic Manuel, Chris Banchero, and just recently, Justin Chua.
“To sum up the season, we had a very traumatic season in terms of just losing personnel,” he said. “We lost Calvin, we lost Vic, we lost CB, we lost Justin. That’s an all-star team right there that we lost. Just vanished.
“Every day we came to practice, one of them was gone. The next day, CB’s gone. The next day, Justin’s gone. It’s crazy, man.”
What makes it frustrating even more, said Wright, was that he believed that they’re bound for a come-up as one of the league’s best.
“It’s really frustrating because I’ve been with Phoenix for six years. I was with Phoenix when we were nothing. We were so bad.
“And we just kept building, building, building, building and we got to a point where I thought that we were gonna be the next team that comes up and we just traded everybody. It’s very hard to stay focused and to be motivated. It’s taxing especially on me and Perk, taxing every day to keep these guys afloat and just hope that somebody comes and steps up,” he said.
If there’s any takeaway from this run, according to Wright, it would be the contributions of RJ Jazuil and rookie Nick Demusis.
“RJ stepped up big time, we saw flashes of Nick Demusis having promise,” he said. “I’m trying to be as positive as I can, that’s the only takeaway I got out of this conference. Hopefully, we can fix things up.”
Now he has his sights set on the future. And part of it is assessing his future with the team since his contract is set to expire this August.
Wright did admit that there are offers, especially from abroad, but he’s keeping his open options for now. He disclosed that he’ll meet with the Phoenix management soon and see what the team has for him.
“Everybody has speculations. Some of the speculations are true, some of them aren’t. The fact of the matter is, I’m expiring soon. So that’s enough to say right there. I’m expiring soon,” he said.
“I’m open to any options right now whether it’s overseas, whether it’s here in the Philippines. I would love to stay in the Philippines.
“My family’s here, my son’s born in St. Luke’s, I gotta farm here in Quezon province, so my whole life is here. I’ve been here for over six years. It’s not easy to just leave. I don’t… nobody really wants to do that,” he continued.
“But if the opportunity arises, the price is right, you gotta reconsider sometimes. But, I love the PBA. I love Gilas. And those two things are very hard to separate,” he furthered.
But like his approach towards Friday’s loss, Wright doesn’t want to get too caught up with the future. For now, he’s excited to rejoin Gilas Pilipinas and gear up for the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi, Vietnam.
“You guys already know there are teams interested, there are leagues interested, different countries interested. It’s just I don’t want to get caught in rumors, it distracts me from the now,” he said. “[It] distracts me from going to practice and being the best teammate. If I focused on that then I wouldn’t care about any of these games that I’m playing right now because ‘I’m going to be here anyway, to this country anyway, to play for this team.’
“I don’t think it’s a good mentality to have. I try not to think about it as much.”
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