After squaring off recently, NorthPort and Converge take on different foes on Tuesday. —AUGUST DELA CRUZ
NorthPort shoots for a clean sweep of the first half of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup and a franchise milestone that still very few believe the club is capable of in yet another rare Tuesday doubleheader at Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.
The Batang Pier, riding on a five-game winning streak to open the midseason tournament, tackle Phoenix at 7:30 p.m. with a chance to turn in the finest start in club history.
Coach Bonnie Tan’s challenge to his team in its most recent win last Thursday against Converge was to not allow a highly-touted debuting rookie to throw a wrench into his squads’ efforts thus far—and that should remain unchanged against a Fuel Masters crew that has not won anything four games into their tournament calendar.
“I told them not to give one man—a rookie—the pleasure of snapping what we’ve been doing well so far. The players seem to have understood the value and thought it would be a shame for our run to end,” the soft-spoken mentor said shortly after the triumph over a full-strength Converge—easily one of the team’s gutsiest wins after taking the scalps of perennial powerhouses TNT and Magnolia earlier this month.
Playoff berth chance
Confidence will be the least of NorthPort’s concerns, especially with import Kadeem Jack playing splendidly in a conference littered with top-shelf names like Tropang Giga’s Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Barangay Ginebra’s Justin Brownlee.
The Batang Pier’s locals haven’t been too shabby either. Defensive specialist Joshua Munzon has been reminding everyone that he is also capable of hitting the big-time shots. Cornerstone Arvin Tolentino is making double-double performances look like clockwork, while rookie Evan Nelle has been solid as a playmaker.
And as far as incentives go, there’s also a chance that six games would be enough for NorthPort to lock up on a playoff berth.
Tan has been latching on to the ever-reliable mantra of dealing with one game at a time, something that FiberXers interim coach Franco Atienza is taking into the 5 p.m. curtain-raiser against NLEX.
The telco club hopes to get back on track after that stinging 108-101 loss at the hands of the Batang Pier as it is hell-bent on improving on their quarterfinal run in the previous conference with top pick Justine Baltazar now in tow.
“If we want to make the playoffs, we have to take care of business in our remaining games here in the eliminations,” said Atienza whose Converge squad is 2-2 in the race. “[And] we’re going to do that [in] stages. So we’ll have to take care of tomorrow first.”
NLEX, however, is shaping up as a vengeful lot come game time after its 109-100 loss to Barangay Ginebra that denied the 3-2 Road Warriors what could’ve been their fourth-straight win in the tournament. INQ