EASTERN coach Mensur Bajramovic admitted the balancing act of playing in three different leagues took its toll on its campaign as a guest team in the PBA 49th Season Commissioner’s Cup.
The Hong Kong-based squad concluded its Commissioner’s Cup campaign with a quarterfinal defeat to TNT, 109-93, in a game that they needed to win in order to force a rubber match that would have been held on Saturday.
Eastern would not have been in this precarious situation had it not lost two straight games at the close of the eliminations. But that stretch was hounded by conflict with its schedules in three leagues – PBA, EASL, and its domestic league in Hong Kong.
READ TNT sends PBA guest team Eastern packing at Final Eight stage
Eastern played on Thursday in the PBA, just 24 hours removed from its EASL game against Taoyuan Pilots held in Taiwan which the HK side also lost.
“Actually, the problem is caused by our schedule, to be honest. We played in two months around 27 games. This is very hard for any team, and comparing with our opponents, they have 12 games sitting here in Manila, and waiting for us to travel and back, travel and back, play games and back. So it was very hard,” said Bajramovic.
Eastern began the conference with a 6-2 win-loss record, but lost three of its last four matches when the juggling act began. That sent the team from being in contention from one of the twice-to-beat incentives in the quarterfinals to falling to a twice-to-win disadvantage after taking the No. 7 spot.
“So we dropped recently for last, let’s say, 20 days. Our performance wasn’t (like) at the beginning which is actually consequences of this schedule,” said Bajramovic.
While the team learned a lot from the experience, Bajramovic is also hoping that their difficulties won’t happen again for the sake of the players.
“I hope the organization of three competitions we play – EASL, PBA, and local Hong Kong league – will have more (cooperation) to help us to avoid these problems that we have,” said Bajramovic.
“It is not human for the players, to be honest. In my career as a player, as a coach, I never have this situation that we play two games in 34 hours in two different countries. I think nobody can do it,” said Bajramovic.
Despite their predicament, Bajramovic was proud of the effort that Eastern showed against TNT to avoid elimination.
“They fought well tonight. This is the most important. Sometimes, the players, their brain wants (to do it) but the body doesn’t listen. But tonight, they tried. In the playoff game, they tried to fight,” said Bajramovic.
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