Asi Taulava gets 6,000 rebounds in PBA Career. PBA IMAGES
Asi Taulava would have wanted one more thing to come with his career night of reaching 6,000 in rebounds.
“It would’ve felt better with a win,” he said, after NLEX bowed to Mahindra, 106-99 on Friday in the 2016 PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
Still, the soon-to-be-43-year-old is thankful to be able to continue doing what he loves.
READ: PBA: Mahindra gets solo second after dropping NLEX
“I’m just happy and grateful that I’m still playing at my age. I guess I can take that as an early birthday gift,” he said. “I just want to continue working, helping NLEX win games.”
But if there’s one thing Taulava is still aching for, it’s the ultimate goal of winning a PBA championship.
“The ultimate thing on my checklist is to win a championship. That’s the reason why I’m still playing, challenging and pushing myself everyday. If I win it, it may be time to walk away, end it on a good note, but you’ll never know,” he said. “One of the things I had in my checklist is a medal in FIBA, and thank goodness for all the guys in Gilas 3, I was able to get that off my checklist. The biggest one for me right now is try to win a championship.”
Despite being the league’s eldest statesman, Taulava reiterates that he still wants to continue bruising at the gym and banging at the hard court rather than look at the end of the road.
“I try not to look at it,” he said. “I just want to continue playing, enjoying the game. It’s fun looking across the floor seeing my teammates and guys on the other teams, seeing them when they were young and elementary, and now they’re in the PBA and see them progress from those days up to now. It’s a great feeling seeing those guys stay dedicated to the game, chase their dream that got here in the PBA. I still feel honored and blessed to still be playing against them.”
Despite his career achievement, the Fil-Tongan’s focus remains on the Road Warriors’ campaign in the current conference.
At 2-2, Taulava remains defiant and wants his wards to focus on the things that makes NLEX successful.
“It’s not even about coaching anymore, it’s about the players. We got to stick to the gameplan, follow it to a tee,” he said.
“When we want to make stops, we make stops. We got to stop thinking playing on offense. We got a tremendous guy in Al Thornton, our offense should go through him and the rest of us on defense and grabbing some rebounds. We got to do a better job rotating and helping him. You can’t try to compete with him in the offense. He’s an NBA veteran, he’s a stud. We’re supposed to make his life easy.”
Taulava admits that the last loss to Mahindra stings, but it didn’t dent his confidence.
“The loss hurts a little bit, but good thing is we got a week to prepare, and stay positive as possible.”
NLEX returns to the court next Friday against Rain or Shine.