Teammates not giving up on David
WITH the enormity of the mission on his shoulders, coach Chot Reyes should be excused if he wouldn’t want to “belabor the little things.”
That was why he refused to delve deeper into the dynamics of Gary David’s struggles in the Fiba Asia Championship and the obvious effort of Gilas Pilipinas to get the hotshot gunner into whatever sort of groove during the tailend of a 90-71 rout of Japan on Monday night at Mall of Asia Arena.
Besides, “it would only put more pressure on Gary,” Reyes said.
To Reyes, there was no blueprint constructed specifically to get David to find his shot. Jimmy Alapag’s drive and then obvious attempt to pass off at the last minute to David for a layup and LA Tenorio’s drive-and-pass to an open David for a corner three wasn’t a coaching strategy.
It was, as Reyes described it, a Band of Brothers kind of thing.
“It just mirrored what this team is all about,” said Reyes. “One comrade was struggling and the rest tried to help him out.
“In fact, it was Jimmy who asked me for the chance to play with Gary in the end, so he can set him up.”
Even David put little weight on his last five points.
As the tournament rolls on, David wants to focus more on doing the little things.
“Defense, hustle, that’s what I want to focus on,” he said. “My offense will come and I won’t try to look for it.”
“But I’m thankful for the support of my teammates and the support of the crowd,” he added. “It’s a thrill to know they hadn’t given up on me.”
For David’s wife Jen and daughter Maxene, watching David make those shots and hearing the crowd react to it later by chanting the Globalport star’s name meant all the world to them.
In fact, when David rushed to hug them at the end of the game, it was a tearful embrace the family shared.
“He had been feeling a lot of pressure,” said Jen David, 30, in Filipino.
Maxene was the most affected. When the crowd chanted her dad’s name at the end of the match against Japan, Maxene sobbed uncontrollably.
“If I could come up to them one by one,” Jen said of the crowd, “I would say thank you to each of them.”
