BLACKWATER coach Jeff Cariaso was careful not to judge Ricky Ledo after the import fired blanks in his PBA Governors’ Cup debut.
Ledo scored just 12 points and shot a horrific 4-of-23 from the field in the Bossing’s 110-97 loss to Rain or Shine - a disappointment considering all the rave the former NBA player got during the offseason.
Ledo went 0-of-11 from the field in the first half, throwing up - and missing - four four-pointers during that stretch. He ended up making just 2-of-14 from twos, 2-of-4 from threes, and 0-of-5 from fours after the contest.
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Cariaso speculated that Ledo got frustrated with all the misses early in the game and struggled to shrug off it off until the final buzzer, in contrast to what he saw during the preseason.
“I don’t want to give him any excuses. He is a good player. He knows that he is a good player. I think what hurt him a little bit was he allowed frustration to get the best of him. Early, hindi siya maka-shoot masyado and he wasn’t able to attack early, he became frustrated and he allowed it to carry it to throughout the game.”
“That’s growth from him that he needs to develop and get better. But there is still trust and belief in him. We know that he is going to come out and be better next time,” said Cariaso.
Ledo only has a day to regroup as Blackwater goes back to action on Thursday against NLEX. Cariaso hopes that his team will be able to bounce back considering how good the team was during their preseason.
Learning experience
“I think we really had such a good preseason where this is the first time that adversity hit us and it hit us early. It’s hard for us to recover. Those are signs of a young team playing together,” said Cariaso.
“We hope to learn from this. There’s still a belief and trust in all the guys. It’s just understanding that experience and time together is really what’s needed. When they hit us, they hit us hard. It was hard for us to get back up. We are hoping to learn from this.
“I expect Ricky to come out and be better in the next games. No excuses for him. He needs to be better, that’s for sure. But so is everyone else,” said Cariaso.
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