MANILA, Philippines — Undermanned TNT managed to dig deep into its bench to outlast hard luck Macau, 106-101 to get its title-retention bid on a winning start on Sunday in the PBA Season 50 Governors' Cup at the Araneta Coliseum.
The Tropang 5G played without veterans Calvin Oftana, Poy Erram and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, who are all down with injuries.
The Giant Pandas trailed by as many as 18 points but the foreign guest squad managed to mount a comeback behind import De’Vondre Perry amd Damian Chongqui.
“Obviously, you can’t be satisfied with an ending like that but at the same time we knew we were going to struggle,” said TNT coach Chot Reyes after the game.
The outspoken mentor explained that the struggle had a lot to do with their lack of preparation.
“Number one, we didn’t have enough players. We’ve got three starters who are not playing. And number two, this is our first tuneup game,” he added.
“We didn’t have a chance to have tuneup (game) in the off-season, because we opted to rest, recover. So this is the first time we played with our import, Darius Days, in an actual game,” said Reyes.
Even with the win, Reyes said they can’t be happy at this point.
“So, as you can see, there’s a lot to work on and the game we played tonight cannot match with the other teams in our group. So, like I told the boys before the game, we’re a work in progress. But if we focus on the right things, just make sure we put some effort and focus on our defense then we should be fine,” he explained.
Rey Nambatac and Days led TNT with 23 points each, while Roger Pogoy chipped in 21.
Perry led Macau, now 0-4 , with 36 points and 10 rebounds, while Chongqui 24.
