BOCAUE – More than its lack of heft and size, TnT Katropa’s woeful shooting factored in its 90-79 loss to Barangay Ginebra in the opener of the PBA Philippine Cup on Sunday.
Team consultant Mark Dickel lamented how the team’s 32.6-percent shooting from the floor badly affected the Katropa from sustaining their momentum against the Kings especially during a stretch in the third quarter when the team appeared on the verge of finally overcoming an early 18-point first-half deficit.
“Ultimately in that game we have to make some more shots if we wanted to. We really have a chance to troubled them and we had an opportunity in the third quarter when we were getting stops and we just didn’t make the looks we’ve got,” said Dickel, talking in behalf of coach Bong Ravena, shortly after the lone opening day game at the Philippine Arena.
Down 26-44 in the second period, the Katropa, who fielded a small-ball starting unit featuring new acquisition Michael Miranda as their sole big man, threatened in the second half and twice cut the deficit to just two, the last at 57-59 on a fastbreak lay-up by Roger Pogoy.
But following a Ginebra timeout, the Kings went on to score six straight unanswered points to take a 63-57 lead entering the final quarter.
The Ginebra lead never went down to three points the rest of the way as TnT began missing its shots.
“You know when you play a good team like that they’ll make you pay for it,” said Dickel.
“When we get easy shots we missed it, too. And when we got good shots, we missed them also.”
TnT missed the services of injured big men Troy Rosario, Yousef Taha, and Anthony Semerad, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for the Katropa, according to their consultant from New Zealand.
Dickel said it is what it is, adding the team will just have to play with the personnel that it currently has.
“We’ve got other good players that ultimately, they’ve got to step up and do the job or we’ll going to be in trouble,” Dickel said.
“Every team has injuries, they’ve got players that we have to and still, they find a way to win. So we’ve got to try and do the same.”
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