Members of the Philippine national men’s basketball team rued their “poor second half” showing against Singapore despite cruising to a 47-point win in their 2017 SEABA Championship tiff on Saturday.
In the post-game interview, coach Chot Reyes said Gilas Pilipinas lacked effort in the hustle charts against the Singaporeans.
“We wanted to beat our hustle numbers from last game, and I know in the first half, we did that, but I doubt if we did it in the second half,” Reyes said.
“I don’t think we did it. We had a very poor second half effort-wise, hustle-wise. I don’t know if it is enough to beat last night’s numbers, but like I said, it wasn’t a good second half in terms of effort.”
Gilas Pilipinas shot 58-percent from the field and, as expected, clobbered their smaller rivals from Singapore, 48-23, in the rebounding department.
But that wasn’t what Reyes was looking for from his team.
“The hustle stats are those that you don’t see in your stats sheet. We have our own different thing: deflections, I think we had 10 in the first half, I don’t know how many we had in the second half; screens that lead to baskets, to shots; the pass before the assist.
“All those other things: diving for the loose ball, what we call our floor burns, padamihan ng gasgas sa tuhod kaka-dive sa sahig, we track all those things.
“I’ve been doing that to all my teams, starting with Coca-Cola in 2002. We’ve been doing that. Those were the things that we track that are not on the regular stats sheet.”
Japeth Aguilar conceded to his coach’s comments.
“Tingin ko nung first half, maganda yung hustle namin, but kinda dipped down nung second half,” Aguilar told InterAksyon.
“If we’re aggressive on offense, maybe we can be aggressive as well on defense. If you can see, kapag offense super aggressive kami. But we will get there. We just have to focus on the two aspects of the game – offense and defense. Kaya naman namin. We have offensive and defensive players in the team.”
Sharpshooter Matthew Wright agreed.
“When opportunity presents itself to dive for the loose balls, we’ll do it. But he’s right. We did come out a little flat in the second half. That’s one of those things when you come up with 100 points for a win and then you were up 35, 40 at halftime,” he said.
“It’s a challenge to stay motivated, to keep the pedal in the gas in the second half. I felt we came out very sluggish. But we got the win and we’re on to the next game. It’s going to be a long journey.”
Calvin Abueva, arguably the most energetic player in the Gilas roster, assured that the team will figure it all out once they play more games.
“Ngayon second game pa lang namin. Hindi pa kami masyadong complete. Ilang days pa lang kami, halos two weeks pa lang kaming nage-ensayo ng buo. Yung chemistry nagiiba-iba pa. Hindi kami yung pool na matagal na nagkasama-sama, may mga bago, galing sa iba-ibang teams. Dito namin pinaghahandaan sa SEABA lahat. Lahat ng mga hirap namin dito magi-start. Kaya mina-maximize namin yung mga kailangan naming i-improve sa loob,” Abueva said.
“Hindi dyan dapat mawala yung hustle, yung energy. Lahat ng mga dapat gawin sa court, kailangan ibigay mo. Hindi laru-laro lang ito. Ito yung importanteng laro para sa atin. Kaya dapat 100-percent yung ilaro namin at ibigay yung best namin dito.”
