Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
You can call it confidence or arrogance, but Mike Nzeusseu truly believes that he’s good enough to help his team win championships.
So much so that he tells his teammates to look at him at the same stature as one NBA superstar.
“Mike is LeBron James. That’s what he told us he is,” bared coach Topex Robinson. “He believes in himself. I want him to be a dominant force down there and he’s really an MVP for me. He just keeps on playing and he’s confident.”
The Cameroonian big man said that he takes inspiration from the four-time NBA MVP, who has proven that he can carry his team by sheer will.
“I like LeBron James. Watching him during the first round of the NBA playoffs and doing whatever it takes, that was my mentality heading into the game. Whatever it takes to get the win because no one will ever give it to us.”
Nzeusseu lived up to his words and served as Zark’s Burger-Lyceum’s anchor down low, pouring 28 points and 18 boards in the team’s 92-82 Game 3 victory over Che’Lu-San Sebastian to win the 2018 PBA D-League Aspirants’ Cup.
For Nzeusseu, the Jawbreakers’ Cinderella run from sixth seed to the to is a testament to Robinson’s never-ending lessons to his squad.
“It thought us how to stay together. Majority of the conference, we were down before getting back up,” he said.
The Jawbreakers found themselves again down by as much as 14 in the third quarter with the Revellers seemingly ready to run away with the title.
But Zark’s-Lyceum slowly and surely chipped its way back as the team went to Nzeusseu, who contributed in the team’s telling 21-4 turnaround and scored 14 in the fourth period to snare the title.
“It was a very intense game. We had to play together and help each other to overcome things,” he said. “At the end of the day, we just wanted go and enjoy the game. That’s why in the second half, coach Topex told us to forget the outcome of the game and just go out there and enjoy.”
With the title in the bag, Nzeusseu believes that this PBA D-League campaign better prepared his side for the upcoming collegiate season with Lyceum looking to achieve what they failed to do in the NCAA last year — win the crown.
“Definitely, this is going to help us. The teams here are tougher compared to the NCAA, so we kind of got used to the physical game here,” he said. “It will only make us tougher.”