OTHER than his woeful shooting from the field, Sol Mercado said a lot of factors contributed to Globalport’s 108-95 loss at the hands of Barako Bull Sunday night in the PLDT myDSL-PBA Philippine Cup at the Mall of Asia Arena.
“A lot of things, like we can’t stop Dorian (Pena). We got outrebounded. They (Energy Cola) hit. The games they’ve won, they hit a lot of threes. We couldn’t buy a bucket, a lot of things,” he said after the Batang Pier ended the year by suffering their third straight loss for a 4-6 slate.
Pena barrelled his way for 15 points and 10 rebounds, while the Energy hit 33 percent from three-point range by making eight of their 24 shots.
But the Batang Pier outrebounded the Energy, 56-49.
Mercado, the team’s leading scorer, was held to just 12 points on a 3-of-17 shooting, just four days removed from exploding for 35 points in a 109-103 overtime loss to Air21 on Christmas Day.
The 6-foot-1 guard was alternately guarded by veterans Denok Miranda and two-time league MVP Willie Miller, preventing him from getting good looks at the basket.
“Not a good game. We win as a team, we lose as a team. We lost tonight, that’s about it,” Mercado said.
Hopefully, Mercado said the Batang Pier will be able to get back on the winning track in the new year when they get back into action against Rain or Shine on January 5.
“We’ll bounce back. We got a couple days’ break before the new year. Practice on January 1 to start the year off right,” he said.
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