There were a lot of things that Alaska can point to when it lost 108-95 to Magnolia in its PBA Philippine Cup opener, but for head coach Alex Compton it boiled down to the very basic.
“We came in the game and really forgot some of our fundamental stuff defensively,” said Compton Wednesday at Filoil Flying V Centre. “In the second quarter, we gave up a ton of layups. I don’t like to call timeouts to stop the bleeding, but there were so many fundamental things that we had to correct.”
Alaska had a respectable 22-12 lead midway through the first quarter but the Hotshots slowly chipped it away and managed to take the 36-35 bubble at the 6:56 mark of the second period after a 24-13 run.
Magnolia then, ended the second period on a 15-5 run for a 57-47 lead heading into the break.
“We don’t usually lose our defensive intensity, on offense we rush sometimes, we get too excited,” said Compton. “As a whole team, we were all so amped up, and that’s the sort of a theme we had in the pre-season.”
“The thing is, our hearts are on the right places, but we need to be mentally sharper and relaxed.”
Alaska allowed Magnolia to shoot 11-of-26 from distance with Paul Lee playing the main gunner for the Hotshots.
Lee finished with 30 points, seven rebounds, and six assists and went 6-of-8 from deep, including a dagger with 3:26 left that gave Magnolia a 103-92 lead.
“We obviously have to be way sharper, we had 22 turnovers, a ton of missed free throws, missed rotations on defense that gave them easy layups, and too much Paul Lee,” said Compton.
Magnolia capitalized on Alaska’s miscues scoring 22 points off turnovers while scoring 46 points in the shaded area.