A visibly frustrated Carlo Lastimosa. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Carlo Lastimosa made it clear that he didn’t had any axe to grind as NLEX fought his old team Blackwater on Wednesday.
“There’s no [bad blood]. Coach [Yeng Guiao] just told me to keep on being aggressive,” he said in Filipino.
Lastimosa followed his coach’s orders, finishing with 23 points in the Road Warriors’ 96-85 loss against the Elite.
However, everything else went wrong for NLEX as the injury-riddled squad struggled to find its groove in the duel.
“We were a little unfortunate so our scoring wasn’t spread out. We all got up on the wrong side of the bed. We’re really unfortunate. We just have to move on,” the 6-foot guard said.
Lastimosa’s frustrations came to a head after he incurred a technical foul for pointing an accusing finger at an official late in the game.
That, coupled with his landing spot foul on Ronjay Buenafe which meritred a flagrant foul penalty one in the first quarter, led to his ejection with 2:35 left in the game, with Blackwater comfortably ahead, 91-81.
He didn’t hide his disappointment with the turn of events, saying, “We were losing, that’s why I was also pissed.
Lastimosa also shared that the Road Warriors are slowly feeling the effects of the skid.
“Of course, we’re frustrated. We have three losses and a lot of injuries. But we can’t do anything about it now. We just have to keep on improving. There’s nothing more to say, I don’t even know what the problem of the team is,” he said.
What would help NLEX end this slump, Lastimosa said, is to develop its character quick based on what coach Yeng Guiao wants.
“We need to build the character of the team, that’s what coach said. We have to rush building the character of the team. Coach Yeng is already a proven champion coach and all of his teams before were all champions. It’s no longer on the system, the problem now is on us players.”