Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Sister teams NLEX and TNT were on the opposite ends of the spectrum heading into their duel.
Already in the top six, the Road Warriors were technically playing for nothing in terms of their playoff implications while the KaTropa were in dire need of a victory to stay in the hunt for a quarterfinals spot.
And it showed on Wednesday night with TNT wanting to win more.
But NLEX rookie Kiefer Ravena stressed that the Road Warriors didn’t give the game away for TNT to stay playoff contention.
“No, no, no. That was one thing that we were really avoiding to hear that we gave the game because Talk ‘N Text badly needs a win,” Ravena stressed after his team’s 101-75 loss. “It was just because we really played a bad game and that was the result of it. We can’t blame anybody for that.”
“Coach Yeng (Guiao) even told us that we could have lost this game, but not this way. It was a terrible way to lose especially coming into the playoffs,” he added. “We really didn’t give the game away because they needed the victory. That’s one thing that we want to avoid but it’s inevitable. We move on from this.”
NLEX scored the first four points of the game, but it was all TNT from there. The game was practically over by halftime with the KaTropa taking a 58-28 lead.
And just when things couldn’t be harder enough for the Road Warriors, it got worse in the second half as they trailed by as much as 38, 59-31, early in the third quarter.
NLEX coach Yeng Guiao acknowledged that it was a “no-bearing game” for his team, but he would’ve wanted to get a victory regardless to get momentum heading into the playoffs.
“Obviously, we’re not really happy with what happened. The best way to prepare ourselves for the quarterfinals would be to give a good account of ourselves in this game but obviously we failed to do that,” said Guiao, whose team was riding on a four-game winning run coming into the tiff. “So we just have to regroup, gather ourselves and make a commitment, recommit ourselves to our purpose of playing good, hard games whether we win or lose.”
Guiao also didn’t like the fact the Road Warriors got dominated in the rebounding department, 38-59.
“What I was harping about that I was very mad about was we gave up too many offensive rebounds and overall rebounds. We just got beat off the board.”