PBA IMAGES
For Mark Barroca, Star’s loss came down to one factor—hustle.
“One stop, one hustle, one offensive rebound, yun lang sabi naming wala kami, lagi kaming outhustled, daming offensive rebound ng NLEX,” said Barroca after Star lost to the Road Warriors 88-85 in the PBA Governors’ Cup Friday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
And “outhustled” was the perfect term to describe the loss as the Hotshots gave up 24 offensive rebounds to the Road Warriors from which the men in white-and-blue converted to 31 second chance points.
Once the mighty Grand Slam champions, the Hotshots are now a mere shell of the San Mig Coffee Mixers as they dropped to 1-4, good for 11th seed of the 12-team league.
“Sana manalo kami sa hustle chart, dun kami mag stick kasi sa mga points naman, offense namin and defense namin andyan pero pag offensive rebound wala kaming nakukuha,” said Barroca who finished with 15 points and eight assists.
Another thing Barroca noticed was the Hotshots’ inability to close out games.
In their four losses, they never lost by double-digits and their average losing margin is 5.5 points.
“Hindi pa rin kami maka-alis sa hump, puro ganun games namin, dikit lang tapos may chance na manalo pero sa huli kinakapos,” said Barroca.