ECOOIL-La Salle took to heart the lessons it learned in Game 1 and earned plaudits from Green Archers coach Derrick Pumaren.
“We had a really horrible first half in Game 1. We gave up easy baskets and that’s not why we’re here,” Pumaren said.
“We’re here to learn and get better and by giving up 17 fastbreak points in Game 1 will not help us for the UAAP,” he added.
Pumaren spoke after EcoOil-La Salle scored a 70-63 victory over fancied Marinerong Pilipino in Game 2 of their best-of-3 finals battle for the PBA D-League Aspirants’ Cup title last Wednesday.
The win atoned for the Archers’ 67-72 defeat at the hands of the Skippers in the finals opener and importantly enabled the Taft-based five to forge a deciding Game 3 for the season-opening tourney’s title Wednesday next week also at the Big Dome.
The league moved the no-tomorrow tiff to next week after it was initially set on Sunday — a development that Pumaren welcomed.
“It will give us ample rest kasi instead of playing on Sunday right away dahil tomorrow we will play again in the semifinals of the FilOil Pre-season tourney and if we win, we will play in the finals that’s gonna be on Saturday,” Pumaren said. “That gives us more days to rest for the guys to recover from injuries and time to lick our wounds.”
Although his wards need to find the right balance between being rusty and weary leading up to the 85th UAAP basketball tournament kicking off on Oct. 1, Pumaren vowed they will go all-out in Game 3.
“We don’t want to come to the UAAP na masyado na kaming mataas kaagad. We got to tone down but of course we will go all-out on Wednesday. We have to learn from that, playing in a championship game, playing in this scenario,” he said.
“Kailang matuto kaming maglaro sa ganito and learn and get the experience that will really be big for us.”