KNOWING the PBA Philippine Cup is being played under extraordinary circumstances, TNT coach Chot Reyes has ordered his charges to adopt tunnel vision.
“We want to make sure to keep our focus on what’s in front of us,” Reyes stressed.“I think these are times where your ability to address what’s in front of you is what’s important, so ‘yun lang iniisip namin. Hindi muna namin iniisip ang record o future.”
So far, that mind-set has worked wonders for the Tropang Giga as evidenced by their 88-67 drubbing of last year’s finals tormentor Ginebra last Sunday at the Don Honorio Ventura State University Gym in Bacolor, Pampanga.
The victory, TNT’s second straight and eighth in nine starts, cemented its hold on the lead and formally pushed it to the quarterfinals.
More wins against their remaining elimination round assignments against Alaska and NorthPort and the Tropa are sure to nab a top two ranking and a win-once advantage over a low-seeded team in the last eight.
Reyes’ sights still wound not go beyond the task at hand, more so with the uncertainties hanging over the field’s head with each weekly cycle of swabs aside from the pre-game antigen tests all of the day’s combatants must first pass.
TNT has already failed one such test while the games were still being played at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig, forcing its sidelining for almost two weeks after an 86-79 win over Terrafirma in their season debut last July 17.
Obviously, Reyes doesn’t want a repeat of that and even included such pre-game prerequisite as another hurdle his team must overcome.
“As you know, every game, what’s in front of us, we all have to pass the test, the antigen test,” Reyes pointed out.
“So sa amin, ‘yun ang unang pinaka-importante,” added Reyes. “Focus now at the task at hand, which is the game at hand. We’re not really looking too far ahead.”
The game against Ginebra validated Reyes’ point as his charges were able to follow the gameplan he drew up to solve the enormous puzzle the Kings usually offer.
“Just their offensive precision. The way they run their offense, we know how clinical and precise they run the triangle and how patient they are. That was the one thing,” related Reyes.
“And we had to make sure that we’re able to contain their twin towers and twin guards.
That’s the difficulty about Ginebra: you have to worry about Japeth (Aguilar) and Christian (Standhardinger). As well, you have to worry about L.A. (Tenorio) and (Stanley) Pringle. And there’s a Scottie Thompson.
