Kelly Williams in the paint vs Blackwater import Shawn Glover. PBA IMAGES
MANILA, Philippines—It’s better safe than sorry for Chot Reyes and TNT Tropang Giga.
They may have been in total control of Bossing in their 106-93 win in the 2021PBA Governors’ Cup on Friday but Reyes wasn’t one to take chances even if they were leading by double digits the entirety of the second half.
Fearing that Bossing could make a late run, Reyes decided to field his Gilas Pilipinas players—Kelly Williams, Troy Rosario, Poy Erram, RR Pogoy, and Kib Montalbo—in the fourth.
“In the end we had to get Kelly back in the game for defensive purposes and because again Blackwater threatened in the last three, four minutes, I didn’t have any plans of putting him back in the game, but the most important objective was to win the game first,” said Reyes Friday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“The situation called that we get defenders inside and that’s why they ended up playing some minutes.”
The TNT quintet featured in the Philippines’ campaign in the 2023 Fiba Basketball World Cup Asian Qualifiers but were called to defend the Tropang Giga’s lead in the fourth as the Bossing tried to steal one.
TNT held by as much as 20, 87-67, early in the fourth but Blackwater trimmed it to as low as 11, 103-92.
Williams, 40, ended up playing 21 minutes in the game and had to man TNT’s paint in the final 4:41 of the fourth.
Reyes admitted that he was worried of his players suffering added fatigue, especially after their play in the World Cup qualifiers, but the situation called for his core to come back and stabilize the game.
“That was actually at the back of my mind that’s why I really wanted to hopefully run up a big lead so we can rest those guys unfortunately we were not able to do that, every time we got up by 20 and I was ready to put the guys on the bench Blackwater would come back,” said Reyes.