TnT Katropa is certain to have on board on Friday night the same man responsible for lifting the team past San Miguel Beer in a stunning Game 1 win in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup finals.
Import Joshua Smith will be playing for the Texters anew in Game 2 of the best-of-seven title series at the Smart Araneta Coliseum despite still being bothered by the foot injury he sustained during the semifinals.
Playing on just one good foot, Smith delivered the game-winning basket in Wednesday night’s opener, 104-102, to give TNT the headstart in the best-of-seven title series.
[See Smith delivers TNT game-winner despite playing on one good foot]
The feel-good victory obviously carried on the hulking 6-foot-10 import the following day.
“As per (Thursday morning), he woke up without any pain (on the foot),” shared team manager Virgil Villavicencio while the Texters were in the middle of their afternoon walk-through at the Moro Lorenzo gym inside the Ateneo campus.
“He woke up fine, according to him,” Villavicencio said of Smith, who finished with 21 points (8 of 17 shooting) and nine rebounds despite favoring his injured right foot.
Smith is not taking any shots to relieve the pain, just oral medication for muscle relaxant, according to Villavicencio.
But he stressed the same assertion of coach Nash Racela that Smith’s condition remains day-to-day.
“You can never tell,” said the longtime team official.
As it is, Mike Myers and even Michael Craig – the team’s supposed reinforcement for the Governors Cup – remain on stand-by status in case Smith could no longer go on for the series.
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