By JEROME LAGUNZAD
Games Tomorrow
(Mall of Asia Arena)
2 p.m. – Adamson vs UE
4 p.m. – NU vs Ateneo
Where ace forward Paul Desiderio goes, University of the Philippines usually follows.
So it’s not surprising that the Maroons struggled when the 5-foot-10 Desiderio groped for form against La Salle’s suffocating defense in the course of their 85-62 loss last Sunday in the UAAP Season 80 basketball tournament.
After torching the defending champions with a career-best 30 points, spiked by six triples, in their 98-87 stunner more than three weeks ago, Desiderio failed to get into any groove against the Green Archers’ towering frontline, led by reigning league MVP Ben Mbala.
“Ang laki ng tao ko. Naiilang ako parati,” said Desiderio, who is giving up at least nine inches to the taller and heftier Mbala. “Wala akong choice kundi bantayan din si Ben. Nakakapagod. Napagod rin ako.”
Despite seeing action for more than 31 minutes, the Cebuano guard could only come up with seven points – way below his 17.1 points average in their first eight matches. He made just two of his 13 attempts from the field, both of them coming beyond the arc in the second period.
In contrast, Mbala poured 13 of his game-best 27 points as La Salle ripped the game wide open by taking a 24-point cushion over the stunned UP side at the break.
“Everything went wrong in the first half,” lamented UP coach Bo Perasol. “I’ve always maintained that you can’t have a chance against a powerhouse team like La Salle if you don’t bring your best game.”
How Mbala was able to put Desiderio out of his comfort zone turned out to be the biggest storyline, admitted Perasol.
“That’s always our problem kasi we cannot just rely on Paul or Jun (Manzo), because every time they’re going to have a bad game, then we’re going to have a bad game too,” he said.
“So what we need is to have some contributions from them. Because we cannot just have contributions from the others and not have contributions from them. We need to have little contributions from the others and contributions from them.”
