Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
TNT coach Nash Racela isn’t fretting over his import Jeremy Tyler’s subpar performance in his side’s 96-92 win over Ginebra on Sunday.
The soft-spoken mentor came to the reinforcement’s defense, baring that the former New York Knick suffered from gastroenteritis and was only discharged early Sunday morning.
“He wasn’t able to practice with us yesterday (Saturday) because we had to confine him to the hospital. There’s some pain in his stomach and just checked out early this morning,” shared Racela.
That’s why he won’t lose sleep even after Tyler only had two points, missing all of his five field goal attempts. He also praised Tyler for getting things done on the defensive end.
“I think the stats would not show much, but we were really conscious about limiting his minutes for his recovery. Today, he didn’t score that much and didn’t get some touches, but defensively, he got the rebounds,” Racela said.
Tyler made up for his bad shooting with 15 rebounds and two blocks.
But Tyler wasn’t the only KaTropa who had struggled offensively. Terrence Romeo also fired blanks, winding up with only three points on a paltry 1-of-9 shooting from the field.
Luckily for TNT, Racela got big contributions Jayson Castro, who had 27 points, five assists, and three steals and Roger Pogoy, who scored 15.
“I think at this point, the nice thing having depth in the guard rotation. When some guys struggle, we could use some of the others,” he said.
“Today, Terrence was really struggled, we got good minutes from the others. That’s something that we’re trying to do with this team — guys being ready.”
TNT tries to stretch its winning run to three when it takes on Alaska next Sunday.