IT’S going to be a short break for NLEX despite its early exit in the PBA Commisioner’s Cup.
Jong Uichico said the Road Warriors will resume their training after a week and begin preparing for the season-ending Philippine Cup that kicks off late in March.
The marching orders came just hours after the team saw its Commissioner’s Cup campaign come to and following its 112-81 loss to Magnolia in their do-or-die encounter for the last quarterfinals berth.
READ Magnolia blows away NLEX to catch last bus to PBA playoffs
“We’ll give them maybe a week or two off and back to work. For me, we do not have the right to give them a long off,” said Uichico.
“We got to get back to work as soon as possible. Hindi naman kami palaging nasa quarters or sa semis. Mabuti kung palagi kaming nandun then we can give them more (time off). Pero wala e. Struggle nga ang makarating sa quarterfinals e. So we need to work.”
The NLEX coach believes things couldn’t have come down to a sudden-death game against the Hotshots had the Road Warriors took care of business in the early part of the eliminations.
There was one stretch however, when they lost five straight games that negated their fast 3-1 start.
During that skid, the Road Warriors lost close games to Magnolia via overtime, 99-95, and to TNT, 94-87.
“If we took care of business, just two games. Dalawang laro lang naman, one or two games, hindi mangyayari ito,” said Uichico.
“But that’s part of the journey or whatever it is. I think for this conference, we could have done better. Unfortunately, things really happen.”
Despite failing to advance to the playoffs, Uichico saw positive signs for the team, something which the Road Warriors plan to build on heading to the all-Filipino conference.
“Siyempre merong positive signs din namang nakita tayo, though we did not make it. And we will try to build on those positive signs,” he said. “But there’s also a lot of things to work on talaga and hopefully, we can work them out in the off-season.”
The 65-year-old veteran coach sees the team still intact by the coming conference, and if ever there would be changes, that should take effect shortly after Season 49.
“Yeah maybe (off season na). We’ll evaluate, assess, and then see kung saan kami puwedeng mag-improve pa and hopefully things will fall into place,” added Uichico.
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