Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Overeagerness doomed Che’Lu Bar and Grill-San Sebastian in Game 2 of the 2018 PBA D-League Aspirants’ Cup Finals on Thursday.
Going for the kill against Zark’s Burger-Lyceum, the Revellers came out flat and stared at a 20-point halftime lead before making a belated rally which just ran out of time as they absorbed a 90-98 defeat.
“Like what coach said, we beat ourselves in this game,” said Allyn Bulanadi in Filipino.
“If you’ll look at the stats, we were leading in everything. So it was our fault why we lost in this game.”
Save for the seven-percent difference in field goal percentage, Che’Lu-San Sebastian was on top of the situation, controlling the boards, 67-44 on rebounds, and dominated the open court, 26-6 on fastbreak points.
What failed the Revellers, however, was their 22 turnovers which the Jawbreakers used to zoom ahead and hold on to the wire-to-wire victory.
“We really wanted to finish the game immediately. We got too overeager,” admitted Bulanadi, who led the crew with 23 points and 10 rebounds.
With the best-of-three Finals going the distance on Tuesday, all bets are off on who will lay claim to the championship.
But for Bulanadi, he believes that this Game 2 defeat puts Che’Lu-San Sebastian on a better position knowing that his side already knows what they should do.
“We’ll preserve this mindset of ours to get this win, but come Game 3, we’ll really follow our gameplan,” he said.