Tony Mitchell. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Star coach Chito Victolero seemed to be alarmed with the way his import Tony Mitchell is performing in these past three games.
Coming off a frustrating outing against Ginebra and San Miguel, the 25-year-old bounced back and tallied 17 points, 15 rebounds, and two blocks in the Hotshots’ 96-90 victory over Blackwater on Saturday.
However, his efforts still came with some caution as Mitchell found himself saddled in foul trouble before ultimately picking up his sixth foul at the 1:56 mark of the fourth quarter.
“Honestly, I’m not satisfied because he was in foul trouble and got fouled out. Tony has to adjust on his defense, on how to play defense without him being called for a foul,” he said. “Luckily for us, we were in control late.”
This was the second straight game Mitchell had fouled out, which raises more concerns whether he is indeed what the doctor ordered for the Hotshots.
The 6-foot-8 forward saw a slight dip in his numbers with an average of 20.3 points, 11.7 rebounds, 2.3 blocks, 1.3 assists, and 1.3 steals in this past three games. The most glaring of all, though, was his 5.7 fouls per game.
But Victolero is willing to be patient as he seeks to utilize the All-Star Week to further ingrain his lessons to his reinforcement.
“Hopefully, in this break, I will show him the tapes so that he could see what he’s doing wrong,” he said.
Victolero also noted that it’s also normal for teams to evaluate their imports halfway through the eliminations, and Star is no exception.
“This is the time where we assess our imports if we want them to stay or not. Every team does this, and we’ll do what’s best for our team. If we think that Tony is the guy who can bring us to the playoffs, we’ll stay with him. But if we think otherwise, we’ll do what we have to do,” he said.
For now, Victolero would rather keep mum on what he thinks of Mitchell.
“I don’t want to think as of the moment. I want to rest first because we’re all tired. We’ll see after the week,” he said.