By REYNALD MAGALLON
Magnolia head coach Chito Victolero refused to raise the white flag just yet as he stayed defiant even after a crushing 109-85 loss that pulled them down to a 0-2 hole in the best-of-seven PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals series against San Miguel.
While the veteran head coach remained positive about the Hotshots chances, Victolero however admitted that the Magnolia think tank must find a way to solve the puzzle in the SMB’s offensive juggernaut.
“We are down but we are not out. Ang dami namang nangyayari na ganyan eh,” said a defiant Victolero after emerging from the Magnolia dugout.
“We just try to find ways on how to solve this offensive juggernaut of San Miguel. At least we have two days now the coaching staff will talk regarding our defensive scheme and our offense also. We need to try to do a better job on finding the open shot,” he added.
While Magnolia’s defense wasn’t entirely bad in the first two games, it was still somewhat lacking against SMB’s weapons which have been firing at all fronts in the Finals so far.
The twin tower combination of Bennie Boatwright and June Mar Fajardo was already a tough task for Magnolia to stop, SMB’s supporting cast in CJ Perez, Marcio Lassiter and Jericho Cruz also continued to deal the damage against the Hotshots.
“We need to fix our transition defense. There were a lot of transition treys especially in the first quarter, I think yun yung una muna naming ayusin then our half court,” he added.
Difficult as climbing a mountain for Magnolia, Victolero is looking to win one game first before thinking of possibly completing the reversal against the mighty San Miguel.
“We’re not giving up, that was the message to my players. This is not the time to whine because we’ve been preparing for this, we dreamt of this eight months ago,” said Victolero.
“But we need muna siguro manalo ng isa this wednesday then all the positive good take all the negative we’ll eliminate that and try to have a better solution for everything,” he added.
