Star makes playoffs, beats Mahindra
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FORCED to dig deep in his bench, Star coach Jason Webb found a gem in Mark Cruz.
The smallest guy on the court delivered the biggest plays and mainly shaped an 86-73 victory over Mahindra Wednesday that propelled the Hotshots to the Oppo-PBA Commissioner’s Cup playoffs at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Ricardo Ratliffe finished with gamehighs of 24 points and 16 rebounds but it was Cruz coming off the bench to highlight his career-high 18 points with 14 in the final quarter that spelled the biggest difference.
With its fifth win in 11 games Star can wind up tied for seventh with NLEX, should the latter lose to Alaska at eliminations’ end tomorrow.
Due to a 99-106 loss to the Road Warriors last Feb. 20, however, the Hotshots, would be ranked eighth and are set to be saddled with a twice-to-win handicap against the No. 1 seed in the quarterfinals.
That is one situation Webb could live with.
“Even if we’re in a twice-to-win disadvantage at least we’re there, we’re fighting, buhay pa kami,” said Webb.
“Our concern is today,” added Webb. “We live in the present. We’re lucky that today’s present was a gift.”
Mainly because of Cruz, who went into the game averaging just 2.17 points per game and 8.67 minutes and then wound up going 5-for-10 from the field, including 3-for-6 from beyond the arc, in a little over 22 minutes of action due to an early injury to Mark Barroca, Justin Melton playing listless and Alex Mallari still to recover fully from a foot injury.
“Our smallest guy was called upon to play and he played well. Grabe talaga puso ng bata,” said Webb of the 5-foot-6 former Letran star tabbed at 30th overall in last year’s rookie draft.
Augustus Gilchrist, Karl Dehesa and Aldrech Ramos each scored 13 for Mahindra, which dropped it to 4-7 that officially placed it at ninth and out of the playoffs for the fifth straight conference.
The Enforcers did put up one gallant fight to salvage their conference, utilizing a multiple-team on Ratliffe down low while being mostly quick in close-outs against Star’s shooters, who sorely missed the services of James Yap (calf injury).
Despite falling behind early, Mahindra staged a determined fightback that saw it draw level twice, the last at 57 following Ramos’ jumper.
Barroca, who needed stitches to close a gash in the vicinity of his right eye following an unintentional hit by Dehesa, did return but it was Cruz who fully went to work at the crunch with his scoring binge that ended with a triple and gave Star a 79-69 spread, only 1:49 to go.
Ratliffe and Barroca then put the game to bed with charities with the former even beating the final buzzer with an undergoal stab for the final count.
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