Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
NLEX coach Yeng Guiao understood where Meralco was coming from at the conclusion of his side’s 90-106 defeat on Friday, but with the game already out of reach, Chris Newsome’s jumper late in the game felt like a slap in the face.
“It’s still disrespect. It was totally unnecessary at that point,” he said.
Guiao argued that Newsome’s right wing jumper with 1.6 seconds left in the clock was totally unnecessary given the Bolts’ 14-point lead in the closing moments of the contest.
“I know that there’s a quotient rule, but it’s more than enough quotient for me,” he said. “At the same time, I did not expect it from Newsome. He’s kind of a good guy who’s going to probably understand a situation like that.”
Guiao may have reached his breaking point given how tough the 2018 PBA Commissioner’s Cup has been for NLEX as it lost all of its first three games.
It didn’t help that Meralco broke away early, which further piled the frustration on the team.
Guiao, though, felt that the Road Warriors deserved the endgame “disrespect” given how bad the team played.
“The way we played, we probably deserved to be disrespected. We played really bad. We could not really find our rhythm in offense,” he said, as NLEX shot 43-percent from the field against Meralco’s sky-high 50-percent clip.
It’s a sharp decline for the Road Warriors crew which have made a breakthrough last conference after making the semifinals.
“It’s disappointing because we played so well in the last conference,” sighed Guiao. “We’ve been making progress steadily and then we come to this. It’s not what we expected.”
But the seasoned tactician knows that there’s no time for the team to mope as the Road Warriors need to shake off everything and go back to work.
“We’ve been struggling so far, and it’s very early. But to be in a 0-3 hole certainly is an emergency situation for us. If we don’t pick it up in the next few games, then we’ll just be looking forward next conference,” Guiao said. “So we just have to go back and evaluate where we’re going.”
NLEX aims to end its skid as it takes on Phoenix on Friday.