TWO great imports, two different styles.
And as blessed as TNT is in having the luxury of replacing super-import Bol Bol with an equally dominant reinforcement in Chris McCullough – adjusting the entire team’s playing style to suit the newcomer can certainly be tricky.
“We finally got into a nice groove with Bol Bol figuring out how to play with him, and then we lost him. So we knew there was going to be a period of adjustment [with McCullough],” TNT head coach Chot Reyes said.
That’s why Reyes and his entire Tropang 5G coaching staff really worked double-time in getting the former PBA champion settled in, and from the looks of it, it worked to perfection after McCullough dropped 42 points on 16-28 shooting alongside 11 rebounds to lead TNT to a 103-95 win over Meralco in Game 5 of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals.
“From the last game he just played two practices with us, so for now he’s got the benefit of a game and an extra practice,” Reyes stated.
“[The goal is] Number one, he gets acclimatized with his teammates with what we want to do and just getting back to the swing of things in the PBA.”
The 31-year-old looked so much more comfortable in getting to his spots, especially in the fourth quarter where he dropped 17 points to carry TNT home.
The Tropang 5G fed McCullough in areas where he could exploit his smaller defenders, something he did well as he repeatedly attacked Cliff Hodge and Javee Mocon without much help from the Bolts’ end.
For Reyes, it was all about putting that previous Game 4 loss to good use.
“We had a lot of positive things from our loss. I know it was a loss but if we could’ve just taken care of the ball a little bit better we could have still pulled out a win in the last game,” Reyes said.
“That gave us a lot of energy coming into this game because we knew even with the adjustments that we had to make that we were still in that ball game in Game 4 except for our turnovers but a lot of that is just getting used to playing with each other especially with Chris,” he said.
“So hopefully this is the start. We still have a few turnovers to work on and like Chris said, the job’s not over. “
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