James White drives against Cory Jefferson. PBA IMAGES
Even with Mahindra falling for the third time in four games, James White believes that his team is better than what its record says.
“Our record doesn’t define us. At the end of the day, it’s about wins and losses, but the effort we put on, it’s all that matters to us. We’re policing ourselves, holding each other accountable at a high standpoint,” he said.
White saw a silver lining in the Floodbuster’s 98-92 defeat to Alaska, with team showing some fight in the second half after falling behind by as big as 18 in the third quarter.
White and Mark Yee carried the fight for Mahindra, which trimmed the deficit to its lowest at five, 87-82, with 4:15 left to play. Unfortunately, experience prevailed late as Sonny Thoss captained the Aces’ telling 10-0 run to put the game away.
For White, the defeat shouldn’t be disheartening but rather be seen as a source of inspiration, with the Floodbuster showing their capability to crawl back from big deficits.
“We always take a positive after every loss. And one of the positives is we fought back from a deficit that a lot of people said we wasn’t getting back from. So I think for us, we have to keep on fighting in every possession, from beginning until the end.”
The 23-year-old reinforcement also believes that if Mahindra keeps up this gritty mentality, the wins will come sooner or later as he keeps his faith on the possibility of his squad still making a late run to the playoffs.
“We know that other teams will make runs, so we got to counter that and just keep fighting no matter what. Every game, we just have to fight and put ourselves in a position to win,” he said. “Like I said, it’s a long season. Anything’s possible in the PBA. I’ve seen teams come back from win-loss records like this and still make the playoffs, so it’s possible. We just got to have a positive mindset.”