ADAMSON coach Nash Racela expects rival teams to focus on Jerom Lastimosa, and he is hoping for the Soaring Falcons' supporting cast to pick up the slack.
Lastimosa scored 10 on 4 of 11 shooting in Adamson's opening-day 60-69 loss to University of Sto. Tomas, and Racela says the rest of the Falcons just failed to step up.
See Nic Cabanero scores 33 as UST downs Adamson in UAAP opener
"It's more on the other guys contributing. If you look at the stats, we took a lot of open shots so ibig sabihin, nagkaroon ng opportunities yung iba. You have to deliver. Ganoon talaga," said Racela.
"I really feel si Jerom has been doing the right things, giving the ball kung kinakailangan. Now it's up to the other guys really step up to the plate and face responsibilities head on. They don't really have a choice."
Joshua Yerro shot 5 of 14 and wound up with 13 points, Didat Hanapi went 4 of 11 from the field for his 10, and Joem Sabandal only made two shots out of his 11 attempts for the game to end up with nine.
"They really made it hard for us, especially Jerom. UST made the right decision in making us choose in a forced shot by Jerom and open shots by the other guys," said the Racela.
Nic Cabanero and the Tigers outhustled the Falcons.
It didn't help that Adamson got plainly outworked by a hungry UST crew as evidenced by the 51 to 41 rebounding discrepancy in favor of the Espana side.
"UST just showed that they wanted it more. First half pa lang, I think they had 15 offensive rebounds and somehow we were able to address it kasi nalimit na namin into four," he said. "But again, you can't just do that sa second half kasi malulubog ka."