NORMAN Black doesn’t want to awaken a sleeping giant especially if he happens to be one of the PBA’s top gunners.
The grand slam coach would rather not talk about how Meralco has been holding Paul Lee below his usual numbers in the Bolts' PBA Governors Cup semifinal series against the Magnolia Hotshots.
The 33-year-old Lee is obviously struggling in the best-of-five series as he was held to a five-point output on 2-of-9 shooting from the floor in a 101-95 loss in Game 3.
In the semis series which the Bolts lead, 2-1, Lee is averaging just 9.3 points after norming 15.09 points in the eliminations and scoring 25 points in the Hotshots’ 127-88 win over Phoenix in the quarterfinals.
Although Lee admitted nursing a left ankle sprain before the start of the semis, Black would rather reserve his thoughts on Lee’s struggles once the series is over.
“I don’t want to say anything about Paul Lee because he can explode anytime,” said the Meralco coach in between laughs. “I’ll save my comments for Paul Lee.”
Courting danger
Black, 64, has been in the game of basketball for so long that giving a deadly sniper in the mold of Lee the motivation to beat the Bolts could be courting danger.
“We know he’s one of the deadliest players in the league, and the last thing you want to do is to give him any type of newspaper clippings to feed him off,” said the grand slam coach.
“So we’ll just [try to] see him off on Wednesday (Game 4).”
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