Magnolia tries to make it two-in-a-row over Alaska in Game Two of the Philippine Basketball Association Governors’ Cup best-of-seven Finals on Friday at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
The Hotshots were a fiery bunch in their 100-84 Game One rout on Wednesday and are looking to post another dominating performance in the 7 p.m. match.
The 18-day layoff caused neither rust nor cobwebs to the Hotshots in the series opener that saw import Romeo Travis scoring 29 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. Guards Marc Barroca and Paul Lee chipped in 16 and 14 points, respectively.
Jio Jalalon was also all over the court and hauled down 12 rebounds and issued nine assists with seven points for the Hotshots.
For Coach Chito Victolero, the Game One victory isn’t a guarantee. Complacency, he stressed, is their biggest concern.
“We cannot afford to relax. It’s still a long way but we’re happy to win one. We need four wins so we’ll be treating Game Two as already a do-or-die game,” Victolero said.
Alaska, however, is expected to dish out a fiery fight back to avoid a 0-2 hole.
The Aces Coach Alex Compton admitted that they played way below their capabilities in Game One.
“We just got totally outworked. It looked like we’re very rusty,” Compton said. “In contrast to our performance, Magnolia showed no rust and played a great game. I expected us to play at their level and for it to be a tight game.”
The Aces were caught flat-footed by the Hotshots’ opening 15-0 run—a deficit they never recovered from.
Compton promised to get his men warmed up for Game Two.
“We got to be so much better. Hopefully we will be fresher,” he said.
Mike Harris had 20 points, while Chris Banchero and Jeron Teng collected 12 and 10 points, respectively, for the Aces.
The league took a two-week break to give way to two Team Pilipinas games in the Fiba Asia Qualifiers for the World Cup. The Philippines lost both to Kazakhstan (88-92) and Iran (70-78) to fall to fourth place in the group with a 5-5 won-lost record.