ANTIPOLO CITY – Phoenix Pulse guard Matthew Wright urged his teammates to step up and fill in the void left by Calvin Abueva as they try to get out of slump in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup.
After a rousing start to the conference, the Fuel Masters absorbed three consecutive losses to sit at the ninth spot with Abueva and head coach Louie Alas suspended.
Abueva, who averaged 14.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, missed the last two matches after being suspended indefinitely by the PBA and fined P70,000 for two separate incidents recently.
“Like I said, everybody has to step up, we don’t know how long Calvin’s gonna be gone for but we just have to take [it],” said Wright on Sunday after their, 82-89, loss to Rain or Shine at Ynares Sports Center.
“What he brings is hustle, rebounds, toughness, [the] guys just have to step up and be that and try to be as Calvin as possible, if that makes any sense,” he added.
To add to Phoenix’s woes, head coach Louie Alas was also banned for the last two games for physical contact with TNT cager David Semerad and fined P40,000.
“I just feel like we’re losing a bit of our edge with Calvin gone and coach Louie suspended for a couple of games,” said Wright. “I feel like we’re just losing a little bit of our edge as a team, the edge that Phoenix has been playing with the last couple of conference that you guys has been familiar with.”
“I thought that we’re just getting a little soft and other teams are taking advantage of that and outphysicaling us, just beating us on loose balls and all those 50-50 balls so we have to address that immediately,” he added.
But on a positive note, Alas will be back on Saturday as Phoenix takes on Alaska.
“Coach Louie, believe it or not, he’s a source of a lot of our inner toughness and will you can see that when he’s coaching,” he said.
Wright pointed out that they have to find a way out of the woods and they have to do it fast.
“We just have to find ourselves living through a rough patch, you know, we’ve been on the wrong side of the media last couple of weeks and I feel like it’s kind of seeping into our mentality a little bit,” he said. “And we have to arrest that immediately before this conference becomes a saying.”
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