JERON Teng isn’t letting the opportunity of playing more minutes with San Miguel slip away.
In the early part of the PBA Philippine Cup, Teng has been producing in his first two games, the same number of matches he saw action last conference in the Commissioner’s Cup.
“Past two games, I was given more minutes than the previous conferences,” said Teng.
“When you have a coach who gives you the opportunity, of course, you have to make the most out of it. I don’t take it for granted. Whenever I’m inside the court, I always make sure that I always give my best.”
Through a pair of games, Teng is now averaging 8.5 points in 13 minutes of play, a valuable contributor to San Miguel’s 2-0 start to the Philippine Cup.
READ: Austria plans to give Teng more minutes after offseason work
Once the main guy during his time with Alaska and Converge, the 31-year-old Teng didn’t hide the fact that there was frustration with the lack of minutes in past conferences.
In times like that, he just focused on the positive side of things.
“I can’t say na walang frustration. But for me as a player, I always see things as an opportunity for me to grow. So those times na hindi ako nagagamit, hindi sa wala akong ginagawa but, at that time, I’m focused on learning from my teammates," he shared.
“I have guys like Chris Ross, Marcio Lassiter, they are winners, they are champions in this league. And I have an opportunity to be with them each day in practice. So every day, I try to learn from them, I ask them questions on both offensive and defensively. So I don’t see it as a wasted conference, but I’m learning and that didn’t stop me from working hard,” he added.
“I always make sure that I always work on my game, and I try to be the hardest worker that I can be."
Being the number one option on offense in the past, Teng said his concentration with San Miguel is on defense since there are a lot of players at the Beermen who can do the scoring load. Defense is also being repeatedly emphasized by SMB head coach Leo Austria.
“I’m more focused on the defensive side na trying to guard the opponent and make sure they don’t score on me. Bonus lang ‘yung scoring but it’s really my defensive side kaya din ako nabibigyan ng playing minutes,” said Teng.
“In practice, he (Austria) challenges everybody, not just me, to really focus on defense. I’m just lucky enough to have guys that I have an opportunity to guard in practice – CJ (Perez), Don (Trollano), Marcio, Jericho (Cruz) – so that’s where I practice my defense. And they are known scorers so we really push ourselves in practice and we make each other better,” said Teng.
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