Matthew Wright. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Sustaining his hot streak from last game, Matthew Wright once again, got himself going, shooting 2-of-3 from threes to finish with 13 points, in Gilas Pilipinas’ 113-66 drubbing of Singapore on Saturday.
Wright, however, downplayed his performance and said suiting up for the national team is about playing selfless basketball.
“Everyone on this team is a go-to-guy. Everybody has egos, but everyone has to play selfless when you play for the country. It’s way bigger than individual stats and it’s way bigger than personal accolades. Everybody has to go on and make the extra pass and look for each other and be selfless,” he said.
For the second straight game, the national team shared the ball pretty well after dishing out 25 assists against the Singaporeans.
That selfless attitude is perfectly embodied by veteran guard Jayson Castro, who took only one attempt in the game and opted to get his teammates good looks especially shooters like Wright lurking beyond the arc.
Aside from making the extra pass, Wright said that the only numbers the team is looking at are the hustle stats.
But unfortunately for Gilas, it didn’t do too well in that aspect much to the dismay of head coach Chot Reyes.
“When there’s an opportunity to dive for a loose ball, we’ll do it. But I felt like coach is right, we kind of fell flat in the second half,” Wright said. “It’s one of those things when you came up with a 107-point win and you’re up by 40 at halftime, it’s a challenge to stay motivated and keep the foot on the gas.”
“I feel like we came out very sluggish. We can’t have afford to have that. We have to learn how to have killer instinct and put our foot down right from the get-go, no holding back, and don’t give them a chance,” he said. “We got the win and move on to the next team. It’s gonna be a long journey so we have to move on.”
Gilas Pilipinas takes on Malaysia next on Sunday.