TNT made short work of defending champion San Miguel Beer and bolstered their bid for a top-two finish last Sunday night.
For Tropang Giga coach Chot Reyes, his team took care of business.
“The important thing is we put ourselves in that position. What I have learned in this life, it’s you never really know what’s going to happen. Things are so unpredictable,” Reyes said. “The best you can do is to give yourself a shot, and I think that’s the significance of this win.
“We gave ourselves a shot. There’s no guarantee. We can play a very strong team in the quarterfinals. There’s no guarantee, but at least, like I said earlier, we gave ourselves a shot,” he added.
Reyes spoke after his charges blasted the Beermen 115-97 for their eighth win in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
The runaway triumph pushed TNT’s mark to 8-3 for solo second behind NorthPort, which wound up with a 9-3 card after the eliminations.
The top two squads after the eliminations will be rewarded with a twice-to-beat incentive in the quarterfinals of the mid-season tilt.
Two-time best import Rondae Hollis-Jefferson shone for the Tropang Giga with a triple double of 35 points, 21 rebounds, and 10 assists while Roger Pogoy added 22 markers on four three-pointers.
Calvin Oftana, Jayson Castro, and JP Erram also had 16, 14, and 14 points, respectively, for TNT.
“The score showed that, but the game was a lot closer than the score showed. It was a war out there. You can ask this guy beside me (Hollis-Jefferson). It was a war in the paint,” Reyes said. “It was highly physical. I mean, June Mar, man, we couldn’t do anything against June Mar (Fajardo), so I think in the end, we wanted to make sure that we don’t get dominated on the boards because they’re the No. 1 rebounding team.
“They lead the league in second-chance points, and I think we were able to do that. We limited them to less than 10 second-chance points and only 11 offensive rebounds, so that was key, and I think that’s why the difference became that way in the end, but it was a war. This game was a lot closer than the score shows in the end.”
Moving forward, Reyes insisted his players should follow their game plan to a T if they want to succeed in their bid to reach the Promised Land.
“We were able to execute the game plan, and I think that’s very, very important moving forward,” he said. “Regardless of what the results are going to be in the future, I think that’s the main significance of this game for us.”
