Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Despite its recent struggles, TNT is still considered as one of the best teams in the PBA. After all, the Talk ‘N Text it is the flagship team of the MVP group.
Results, however, haven’t favored the KaTropa, who last won a title in the 2015 Commissioner’s Cup and have only one finals appearance for the past three seasons.
In the last conference of the 2017-18 season, TNT didn’t even make it to the playoffs making the 2019 PBA Philippine Cup some sort of a new start for the once proud franchise.
TNT did make use of its fresh start as it beat reigning champion San Miguel, 104-93, in convincing fashion Sunday at Smart Araneta Coliseum in a victory that Jayson Castro described as one of the best they’ve had in recent memory.
“This is good for us because our confidence really went up,” said Castro in Filipino. “We all know how hard defeating the defending champion is because they’ve dominated the PBA for so long so this is great for us.”
Castro’s words do bear a lot of weight on it since the KaTropa’s last win over the Beermen was in Game 5 of the 2017 Commissioner’s Cup in a series that San Miguel won in six.
That loss started a string of defeats to San Miguel including a couple in two separate quarterfinals, that left the KaTropa to block out all the negativity they’ve received from the Beermen.
“I honestly don’t remember that last win because we’ve always lost to them,” said Castro, who finished with 24 points, five rebounds, 11 assists, and four steals. “I think it was just our confidence that eventually pushed us to the victory.”