In a moment of pure tenacity, San Miguel point guard Chris Ross played through pain to deliver the goods for the Beermen in Game 4 of the PBA Philippine Cup semifinals against Ginebra.
Ross, however, displayed his might in complete disobedience of all his coaches in San Miguel.
“All the coaches told me ‘no, no, no we’re not going to use you,’” said Ross after San Miguel’s 102-82 victory Thursday at Mall of Asia Arena. “I said ‘come on coach, I’ll be smart. If I’m not feeling right, I’ll tell you to take me out.’”
“Every time down on defense all the coaches were asking me ‘Chris, are you okay?’ and I will always tell them to just believe in me and I will tell them if I’m not okay.”
Ross, who played for less than nine minutes, has a strained right thigh he suffered in the Beermen’s 95-87 Game 3 loss against the Gin Kings Tuesday.
San Miguel head coach Leo Austria said they already planned to sit out Ross for Game 4, but he had to give in to his player’s requests.
Ross, who didn’t play in the second half of Game 3, responded by scoring 11 points, all in the second quarter, on 4-of-4 shooting including 3-of-3 from deep.
“Today, Chris was a warrior, and he wants to help the team even though we didn’t want him to play,” said Austria. “Good thing he was able to contribute on offense.”
Ross said he couldn’t bear just watching from the bench and that he had to take action in whatever way he can.
“Tonight was kind of one of those days, I just wanted to give them a spark. I think I played less than 10 minutes, that was enough to give my team the energy they needed,” said Ross. “I knew I couldn’t sit out this game, so any kind of spark that I gave, I just tried to do it for my team.”