By REYNALD MAGALLON
Beau Belga’s confidence in Rain or Shine is not wavering even if the team is now down 0–1 in their best-of-three quarterfinals series against TNT.
The Elasto Painters absorbed a 116-99 whipping against the Tropang Giga in Game 1 on Friday at the Araneta Coliseum but Belga believes the series is far from over as they hope to force a winner-take-all Game 3.
Game 2 of the series is on Sunday, May 12, at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.
“Nothing to worry about kaya nga nandito kami sa series, it’s the best-of-three. We’re in the burden of getting eliminated on Sunday but still we have the chance,” said Belga.
The 37-year-old veteran is keeping his faith in his team, believing that they are more than capable of overcoming the twice-to-win disadvantage they are now facing against TNT.
For one, the team, as young as it is, already displayed poise against pressure when they managed to climb out of a 0-4 hole to start the conference and still make it to the quarterfinals.
“We’ve been here in this situation. We were 0-4 at the start of the eliminations but we carved out nandito kami s playoffs. Playoffs is a different atmosphere kesa sa eliminations pero we still have the chance,” Belga insisted.
ROS, however, still has a lot of thinking to be done ahead of Game 2 especially after TNT asserted its playoff experience over the relatively younger crew, with Calvin Oftana and RR Pogoy erupting for 32 and 26 points respectively.
Even Belga was limited to just five points after averaging 17.6 points in the eliminations.
Being one of the two players along with Gabe Norwood with deep playoff experience, Belga, however, refused to pin the blame on the team’s inexperience as the reason behind the Game 1 collapse.
“They should be ready by now,” Belga said about ROS who had a solid 23 points from Santi Santillan in the loss.
“Hindi pwedeng sasabihin mo na lang lagi na everytime we’re in the quarters in the playoffs, kulang kami sa experience. Di pwedeng ganun eh kasi first time ko na nagplayoffs 2012 puro din naman kami mga bata, nuon kami nila Paul (Lee) pa eh we just carved it out,” he added.
