LA Salle’s scrappy forward Jason Perkins believes the Green Archers need to do the “little things” to keep their title-retention bid alive.
Although the bigger La Salle squad won the battle of the boards, 48-39, during their playoff for the No. 2 seeding, Perkins felt the Green Archers broke down in the final period, allowing the FEU Tamaraws to hack out a 65-60 victory and clinch the twice-to-beat advantage in the semifinals.
“(Had some) little break down in the game but we (need to) fix little things, mental things, like passes, boxing out, be where we need to be, play to our tendencies,” the burly Perkins said.
The left-handed Fil-Am finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds for his sixth double-double this season, but even his herculean effort wasn’t enough as frontcourt partner Arnold Van Opstal was quiet on the offensive end.
The Fil-German center finished with just seven points, missing several easy putbacks during the second half, while committing a game-high seven turnovers.
Perkins acknowledges that FEU has been playing great basketball all season long, breaking down the rival offense with quickness and solid defense.
“They play really well as a team. They take advantage of mismatches because they are fast,” he said.
“But we’re gonna figure something out for that next game,” he added.
With a week to prepare, Perkins feels it is enough time for them to recover, plot their next move and try to force a sudden death game.
“Every time we dump it down low, they always double-team or triple-team. On my part, us (doing) stupid stuff, missing layups, missed a lot of easy shots, but next time though, bawi. We’ll come back a lot stronger,” vowed the La Salle forward.