Tautuaa gets ‘clean’ slam over Santos but TNT falls to San Miguel
TNT’s Moala Tautuaa. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
With an open lane and a waiting ring, all Mo Tautuaa needed to do was to take the jump and slam the ball home.
“It’s fun. I like dunking. It gets the people going,” he said.
This year’s top pick got a bounce pass from Larry Fonacier in the right flank and saw his lane close down with the San Miguel defense was quick to react as Arwind Santos and June Mar Fajardo scampered to deny Tautuaa any entry to the rim.
“I was ready for a foul. I went up seeing a lot of bodies, a lot of body contact and I tried to shy away from it,” he said.
Without fear or any hesitation, he went up and slammed the ball home, putting Santos on a poster anew early in the fourth quarter of TNT’s duel against San Miguel on Saturday.
“It was a clean transaction,” he quipped.
It was Tautuaa and the rest of the Tropang Texters, though, who went home disappointed as TNT fell to San Miguel, 97-84.
But the jovial big man hopes that the huge slam would at least give the Tropang Texters a little something to smile about, saying, “We lost so it’s not that cool. But let’s get something positive from this. Hopefully, I get top plays of the week, something cool.”
It was another learning experience for the Fil-Tongan big man, who faced off against two-time PBA MVP June Mar Fajardo in the said game.
“It’s definitely different, playing a variety of different players, quick bigs, really slow bigs. It’s a lot of things to ingest,” Tautuaa said. “Today, I didn’t make the proper adjustments. I got in foul trouble and it showed. It set us back again.”
He finished with 14 points and a lone rebound in a game where he was saddled in foul trouble.
Ever the optimist, Tautuaa tried to put a positive spin in this experience.
“You got to use different aspects of the game cause they took away my strengths. I just got to find ways to adjust on another one,” he said. “It’s tough, but I have to learn from it, keep positive, keep growing and continue to work on the right direction.”
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