THE prevailing trend at TNT in the PBA 50th Season Commissioner’s Cup finals is that it’s either RR Pogoy or Calvin Oftana who goes off in each of the games.
Pogoy has been piling up the points in during the odd-number games where he had 22 in Game 1 and 28 in Game 3, after he had 10 in between.
On the other hand, Oftana has so far been very good on offense in the even-number games after he had a season-high of 31 points in Game 2, after chipping in 12 in Game 1 and only two in Game 3.
Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone stated the challenges of guarding Pogoy and Oftana.
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“It’s kinda pick your poison with that team,” said Cone of TNT. “It’s hard to get two committed defenders, two really great defenders to go out there and play against Pogoy and Oftana.”
Cone is sure though that the challenges of finding that other ‘great defender’ to neutralized TNT’s dynamic duo is not because of lack of effort.
In Game 2, Scottie Thompson mostly had the role of defending Oftana, but the 6-foot-1 Barangay Ginebra guard already conceded 17 in the first half to the 6-foot-5 TNT star.
“Scottie tries but he is a little bit undersized because he is generally a point guard. He tries to be that other committed defender,” said Cone.
That one ‘great defender’ that Barangay Ginebra has is Stephen Holt, who was tasked to guard Oftana.
“A lot of that was Stephen especially against Oftana,” said Cone on Holt after Oftana scored only two points in Game 3. “Pogoy had a big night against us. He hit some big shots, got us down to the post a little bit.”
“But Stephen, he comes out of the timeout and says ‘Give me the hot guy.’ Whoever is the hot guy, I’ll take it. And again, those are the things that people don’t see that he contributes and impacts winning."
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