TNT coach Mark Dickel. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Coach Mark Dickel firmly believes TNT let its guard down in a 108-72 loss to Alaska that saw the KaTropa botch a golden opportunity in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup quarterfinals on Sunday night.
Ranked first, almost untouched in the eliminations and coming off a hefty break, TNT was highly favored to punch the first semifinal ticket when it went up against the eighth-ranked Aces.
Instead, they found themselves on the receiving end of a blistering start and an even harder finishing kick by the Aces, who dealt them a beating no one has been able to give them here.
“They really jumped out on us,” assessed Dickel, after seeing his charges utterly dominated by an Alaska side that got into the playoffs via the backdoor.
The Kiwi mentor, who joined TNT late last year, pointed to complacency as the biggest culprit.
“We just assumed that if we come out and play, it’s going to go our way,” he said. “[But] basketball is not like that.”
“It kind of felt like whatever could go wrong went wrong,” Dickel went on. “They outhustled us, outrebounded us, outworked us.”
True enough, they were outplayed in nearly every statistical category: TNT only had 47 rebounds against Alaska’s 73, 11 assists versus 22, and was terribly outscored from the paint and in second-chance points.
This is the first time since 2014 that TNT topped an elimination round, and the way it ended that year was rather forgetful—the team was swept by Barangay Ginebra.
And if the KaTropa don’t watch out, that could happen again here.