Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
TNT import Joshua Smith went straight to the point and lambasted the referees on the heels of his squad’s 111-102 Game 5 loss to San Miguel in the 2017 PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals on Friday.
“PBA officials are terrible,” he said, obviously pissed off with how the game ended.
Smith felt slighted by the way the game was officiated, calling out referees Noy Guevarra, Rey Yante, and Mao Orioste, “terrible.”
When pressed to elaborate on his statement, the hulking reinforcement repeated the same words thrice before reporters decided to abruptly end the interview.
Sources close to the situation shared that Smith’s frustration is from what he felt were a lot of non-calls against him, which paved way for Beermen to come back from a 15-point halftime hole and eventually take the 3-2 series lead.
Not helping was the 32 fouls whistled on the KaTropa, which led to 38 free throw attempts for San Miguel.
However, Jayson Castro believes that TNT must play through those distractions and focus on the game at hand.
“That’s how it is. What we must do is to focus on the game and don’t mind the officiating. We can’t do anything about that. The officials are doing their job and they might get things wrong cause they’re just human. But we have to focus on our game and bounce back next game,” he said.
Game 6 is on Sunday, where the KaTropa shoots to force a winner-take-all Game 7.