San Miguel coach Jorge Gallent. –PBA IMAGES
MANILA, Philippines—Despite San Miguel’s tremendous ball rotation in its win against Northport in the PBA Governors’ Cup at Mall of Asia Arena on Wednesday, coach Jorge Gallent was not fully satisfied with the win.
In the Beermen’s 145-132 victory over Batang Pier, Gallent decided not to celebrate the team’s 46-assist night and said lots of work is needed in the squad’s defense.
“We dished out 46 assists, but our defense was terrible,” said the top coach.
“As what I always say, in order to win you have to share the ball. Without sharing, you have to do everything to give opportunity to others. If we’ll be stagnant with one side, nothing will happen,” he said, trying to find a silver lining.
The Beermen outpassed Batang Pier by a large margin, 46-17, but were unable to hold the Batang Pier to their season average in points.
The Bonnie Tan-led squad averaged just 105.8 points a night, ranking only as the seventh highest-ranked squad in terms of scorin but managed to drop 132 on the All-Filipino Cup champions.
San Miguel import Cameron Clark in the PBA Governors’ Cup. –PBA IMAGES
Cam Clark, who had his highest scoring output of 44 to go along with nine rebounds and seven dimes, however, gave credit to their movement in their sixth conference win.
Clark said they were playing the famed “SMB basketball” type of play to bury Batang Pier to a 0-6 winless record.
“I feel like I was just out there playing hard and we’ve been playing SMB basketball by just sharing the ball. I feel like we got stops in the end after going on a slow start. We started making shots and got confident,” said the import.
Currently, the Beermen are second in assists per game with 27.2, just closely behind Ginebra’s 28.5.
Coincidentally, San Miguel’s next clash would be against the Commissioners’ Cup champions Gin Kings in a marquee matchup.
For Gallent, there should be no mistakes heading into their sister-team clash, saying they should stick to what they did on Wednesday while staying sharp to one-up the juggernaut team.
“When we [Ginebra] play them, we have to stay sharp. We can not start sluggishly, we have to play sharp for 48 minutes. If not, they will take advantage of that because they have a good coach and they are well-disciplined,” he said.
“This week will be tough for us but it will be a test of character. Now, we finished Northport but tomorrow we will think of Ginebra,” he concluded.