ANTIPOLO - TNT coach Chot Reyes was a lot happier with Sunday's performance, just two days after lamenting that Bol Bol and Co.'s effort in their PBA 50th Season Commissioner's Cup debut “sucked like hell.”
The Tropang 5G earned their first win of the midseason conference by holding off NLEX, 103-97, on Sunday. Their highly-anticipated debut last Friday with the Bol as their import ended in a 112-109 loss to Rain or Shine, leaving Reyes displeased with his 7-foot-3 former NBA player despite his 38 points, 16 rebounds, and five blocks.
READ TNT gets act together in time to survive giant scare from NLEX
Bol had 40 points, 15 rebounds, and two blocks against NLEX, but more importantly, showed a lot more effort in the game.
“My entire pregame was very simple actually,” said Reyes. “It can boil it down to one word and I just said it boiled down to effort.”
“The reason why I was very upset when we lost the last game was because I felt Rain or Shine just simply outworked us. For us, effort is a sacred value and we can accept teams outplaying us, being better than us, but we cannot accept the fact of losing the effort battle.”
“That's why today, that was my only message. I said I don't care what you do, how many shots you miss, as long as we outwork the other team. And I thought Bol put in great effort on the floor,” said Reyes.
Reyes, however, said Bol still needs to adjust to the PBA brand of basketball.
“But I think we still need to get a lot more work, some more work before he figures out really how to play here in the PBA. We told him. At least now, he is experiencing it first hand that this is a tough league. Hopefully, he keeps on improving,” Reyes said.
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