MANILA, Philippines–TNT turned to its long-distance shooting and its primary cast anew to weather San Miguel Beer in a smashmouth Game 3 of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals on Friday night.
But Mark Dickel, KaTropa’s other shot-caller, felt that patience and composure also had a hand in the victory.
“It was good. [Our] energy was good,” he told reporters shortly after the 115-105 decision that put his charges on the driver seat of the race-to-four duel at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“It was [about] just not getting too hung up on what’s going on with the flow of the game,” he added.
Dickel, the top seed’s active consultant, felt like nobody typified such resolve more than their import Terrence Jones, who has been taking the brunt of San Miguel’s defensive schemes in the series.
“I thought Terrence was great,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult and it’s not an easy role to have. Pretty much everybody on the other side is trying to agitate you and get you out of your game.
Dickel said his prized reinforcement showed a lot of patience and maturity just being able to play through the game and not reacting to any of San Miguel’s cunning tactics to throw him out of a groove.
Jones, for his part, was still able to leave his prints all over the game. He flirted with another triple-double after scoring 37 points, grabbing 18 rebounds, and dishing out nine assists.
His post-game interview was nothing short of telling. The do-it-all American dodged questions regarding Christian Standhardinger and Chris Ross, whom he butted heads with early into the contest.
Dickel revealed he told Jones to focus on the task at hand and leave the worrying to the coaching staff.
“Like we just stressed to him, we’d fight for him on the sideline and he just plays his game,” he said.
That, as it turned out, yielded results for KaTropa, who have a day’s worth of preparation before shooting for a 3-1 lead against the vaunted Beermen this Sunday.
“That gave us rhythm out there. When he has good rhythm, our other guys tend to make shots,” said Dickel.
But in the same breath, Dickel pointed out that they haven’t accomplished anything yet.
“We haven’t really done anything. We got to come back on Sunday and play another good game to give ourselves a chance (of winning),” he closed.