WHEN Titing Manalili went down with an injury, the narrative for Letran was to try and scrape as many wins to try and keep their heads above water until their star point guard returns to action.
But coach Allen Ricardo isn’t the type of mentor to be satisfied with just barely getting by. He came into this game against College of St. Benilde with a clear mandate on his wards:
“Sabi ko nga sa kanila, hindi tayo pwedeng manalo na chamba chamba lang,” Ricardo said.
“A win is a win but still we should know, we should identify where the wins are coming from, offensively and defensively.”
READ: Letran goes back-to-back with impressive blowout of St. Benilde
His boys responded with what could be their most impressive win of the season, an 83-72 victory over the Blazers to close out their crossover phase and had them returning to their NCAA Season 102 group with a 6-3 record.
It took quite some time for the Knights to regain their footing after losing Manalili due to a knee sprain against Lyceum. However, slowly but surely, his team is already learning to not just get by and even dominate without him and it all starts with Ricardo getting things back to basics.
“At the end of the day, we try to keep the game simple. Everything starts with defense,” Ricardo said.
“Ito yung resulta. They're enjoying the game, playing defense and running on fastbreaks, transitions. I'm trying to keep things simple for them.”
Letran was aggressive on both ends, living in the paint through the constant rim pressure of Denzil Sison-Walker and Justin Cargo while forcing 18 turnovers which they turned into 22 fastbreak points.
Sison-Walker finished with 21 points, seven rebounds and four assists while Cargo added 13 points and five steals to make up for the hole that Manalili left on the playmaking and defensive end.
As a team, the Knights had 21 assists to their 31 field goals and had 10 steals all in all.
“Kahit wala si Jonathan, they should be confident sa sistema,” Ricardo said when asked what changed in this game for his team.
“Wag silang aabandon dun sa ginagawa. Just keep the game simple. Identify where to go and hanapin namin yung dapat hanapin.”
Now that his team is starting to play like a contender again even without Manalili, Ricardo can now start his long preparation towards the playoffs as the league enters its homestretch.
“Satisfied ako right now because they knew where to go, they knew one action to the next action, so that’s how we played,” he said.
“Siyempre, there’s always room for improvement for us. We still have four games before the quarterfinals. We’re trying to build momentum going to the playoffs. That’s the most important thing.”
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