‘QUIT FOULING MARQUS’
AS GAME 2 of the Petron Blaze-San Mig Coffee duel for the PBA Governors Cup championship has just attested to, there is no love lost between the combatants.
Expect the bad blood to come to the fore even more Wednesday when the Mixers and Boosters get it on anew for what could be a critical edge in the best-of-seven series at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The prospects of action heating up on the sidelines as well as on-court loomed after San Mig coach Tim Cone took exception to what Petron counterpart Gee Abanilla termed was his team’s inability to draw fouls, resulting in a huge disparity in the charities awarded the combatants thus far.
“Well, my response to Petron’s complaints about the calls of the referees is, do us a favor and quit fouling Marqus (Blakely) every time to put him on the line,” said Cone, adding what Abanilla was referring to is old hat.
“It was the same complaint in our Meralco (semifinals) series. But if you’re going to continue to foul Marqus as a strategy and put him on the line and put yourself in early penalty then expect a lot of free throws,” stated Cone.
Following a 93-100 loss in Game 2 last Sunday that tied the duel at a game apiece Abanilla lamented the fact San Mig was awarded 55 free throws, 24 more than his team, although he said his gameplan was for his Boosters to be aggressive and attack the basket.
By himself Blakely accounted for 21 of the freebies awarded, although he made just seven of them. He canned two at the height of Petron’s fouling spree to try and stop the clock inside the last three minutes of the game and work its way back from a 79-88 deficit.
According to Cone Petron should stop the “Hack-a-Marq” since his own team is certainly not employing any such tactic.
“In all honesty, we’d prefer to shoot less free throws,” said Cone. “But saying you got 31 free throws and that’s not enough then how many do you want? We’re certainly not trying to foul anyone on their team. They shoot the free throw too well.”
Such barbs just tend to further spice up a series that saw the two teams combining to draw two flagrant fouls and four technicals in Game 2 alone.
Despite those, San Mig managed to keep its poise as a result of what Cone said was the “realization” by his team that Petron is not to be trifled with.
“It was more of a realization that we finally knew how hard we have to play to be able to play with this team,” said Cone a couple of days after his charges got whipped to the tune of 84-100 in the series opener.
“I just don’t think we made them realize the level of desire, intensity and discipline we needed to compete with this team,” added Cone. “That first game made us realize how hard we needed to play, sort of a disciplined approach. They’re a great team.”
Cone also said it was his players who took it upon themselves to re-align their collective mindset.
“It came from the players, that they needed to step up. James (Yap) got us off to good start, PJ (Simon) showed up. Our point guards played really good defense. That’s all it will take for us to beat this team. We have to be firing in all cylinders.”
Abanilla said his team intends to do just that in the first game of what has become a best-of-five. “We’re still upbeat. I know we can still recover from this situation,” he stated.
Cone expects Petron to be just that. “I’m sure they would be a much more focused team,” he said. (NC)
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