Aces fail to recover from awful start

Alaska Aces. PBA IMAGES

Alaska import Cory Jefferson said the Aces didn’t show up the way it should have in a loss to the Meralco Bolts Saturday night.

Alaska shot itself in the foot after coming out lackadaisically, resulting to Meralco building a 50-35 lead by halftime.

And it only got worse from that point on as the Aces trailed by as much as 25 points before a late rally in the final five minutes made it appear like a closely-contested game.

“It was definitely a poor start for anybody. It was a bad start, a bad half really for us,” said Jefferson after a 99-91 loss. “As a team we knew we could do better. We know what we did wrong, we know what we can do to fix it. We go back and watch film and reflect on the game.”

“We weren’t ready at the beginning of the game. We came out flat, but at the same time, that’s basketball. Teams lose, teams win still plenty of games left so we will bounce back.”

Jefferson led the Aces with a game-high 32 points that went with 13 rebounds and three blocks.

He also said Alaska had lapses on the defensive end that translated to a ton of open looks for Meralco.

“Coach prepared us well. We were ready for everything that they did. We just had some breakdowns on defense and they were hitting a lot of good shots.”

Jefferson teamed up with Simon Enciso and Tony dela Cruz to pull Alaska within single digits but the Aces put themselves in too deep of a hole to recover from in limited time as they reeled to their first loss in five outings.

“Coach said it the right way, we dug ourselves in the hole in the first half. We can’t expect to win doing that. I think the biggest key for us moving forward is we can’t start out that flat. It’s a tough one for us to swallow,” said Enciso, who scored eight of his 14 points in the final five minutes.

“But like I said, it’s not the last two minutes where our will got ourselves to win. I think it was just we dug ourselves in such a big hole. We couldn’t get back. Gotta give our hand to Meralco.”