MANILA, Philippines—Petron Blaze star Arwind Santos ended his dry scoring spell in a big way.
Santos admitted that it took him time to adjust playing with new import Nick Fazekas, but the long-limbed forward finally regained his scoring touch in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup eliminations.
“It’s different when there’s an import, you have to change your style of play a bit,” Santos said in Filipino. “And there’s also some of our opponents’ no let-up defense, I also had to adjust to that.”
Santos averaged a measly 6.7 points and 10.3 rebounds in the Blazers’ first three games this conference, way off his double-double average of 17.3 points and 11.8 boards in the Philippine Cup.
But Santos made up for it in the Blazers’ back-to-back victories last week where he also set a new career-high of 34 points aside from grabbing 13 rebounds in their 110-103 win versus Rain or Shine last Sunday.
The record was two points better than the previous high he set with Air21 in the 2007-08 season.
Aside from averaging 23 points in two games, Santos also registered 11.5 rebounds, three assists and two blocks to earn the Accel-PBA Press Corps Player of the Week honors for the period Feb. 27 to March 4.
The 30-year-old Santos edged Talk ‘N Text’s Jason Castro and Barangay Ginebra’s Mark Caguioa for the weekly honor given by the league scribes.
“A player like Arwind is hard to stop,” said Petron coach Ato Agustin. “He might have some struggles, but eventually, his real game will show.”
Last week’s victories stretched the Blazers’ winning streak to three for a share of third place at 3-2.