The San Miguel Beermen aren’t about to rush explosive guard Cjay Perez back from his injury—not even if the man himself wants to give it a try.
Beermen Let Cjay Perez Rest More
San Miguel coach Leo Austria revealed after the Beermen’s 144-113 shellacking of the Titan Ultra Giant Risers that Perez himself wanted to play already but was barred by the team, opting instead to give him more recovery time for the rest of the PBA Governors’ Cup.
“He wanted to play tonight, gusto niya i-test…,” Austria told reporters after the game. “But we prevented him to play because sayang naman ‘yung day for him to recover dahil it’s not an easy injury kasi sa groin. We know pag sa groin or hamstring, traydor ‘yan. You can never know kung kailan babalik.”
Perez injured his groin in San Miguel’s loss to the NLEX Road Warriors in the first round of eliminations. He played briefly in the next game, a 143-105 rout of Titan Ultra, before missing the last four games—a 93-89 loss to the TNT Tropang 5G, a 126-114 win over the Converge FiberXers, a 131-79 dismantling of the Macau Giant Pandas, and Wednesday’s win over Titan Ultra again.
Cjay Perez Not Fully Healed
Curiously, Perez is part of Tim Cone’s 30-player pool for the Asian Games and, according to Austria, has been asked to report to practice on Monday, August 17. However, Coach Leo also revealed that The Predator is still not fully healed from injury, which is likely why he was kept on the shelf on Wednesday.
“He was informed to practice sa national team, but we told him you have to get your clearance from the doctor because he’s not 100% because hindi pa fully healed ‘yung kaniyang injury,” Austria pointed out.
That means Cjay Perez is in a race against time to be fully healthy if he wants to join Gilas practices—and set himself up nicely for a return to action for San Miguel after the long break.
