TNT Tropang 5G coach Chot Reyes admitted on Saturday he had no idea how his team pulled out a 93-89 stunner over the San Miguel Beermen. After all, they were grossly undermanned, with Calvin Oftana, Jayson Castro, Kelly Williams, Jordan Heading, and RR Pogoy all out, and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser just being eased back into the rotation.
And yet the Tropa pulled off a most improbable win to improve their PBA Governors’ Cup record to 3-2. Afterward, Reyes believed the victory was a referendum on his team’s mindset and defense.
“First of all, I really don’t know how we did it, but from all of my emotional intelligence and mental strength coaching, I know how important mindset is,” Reyes told reporters in the postgame presser. “We could have had an attitude going to overtime where we said, overtime na naman… That’s why I made it a point to reframe it into a positive mindset. I said don’t lose hope… Who would have imagined overtime natin ng San Miguel without our top three scorers.”
TNT already took the mighty Beermen to overtime. There, Kim Aurin delivered the win, hitting back-to-back treys in the last minute and tracking down a clutch offensive rebound.
The TNT Defensive DNA
Belief is one thing. Doing something about it is another. And without their top scorers, Reyes knew precisely what TNT must do against San Miguel—play excellent defense.
“We knew we didn’t have a lot of our guys, our main scorers. And so we said, ‘Daanin na lang natin sa depensa.’ In our practice, that’s all we worked on was our defense—to limit the number one scoring team in the league… We limited them to essentially 80… Thankfully the game plan worked.”
The game plan definitely worked as the Tropa held San Miguel to 73 points in regulation and under 20 points in three of the four quarters. In short, TNT played the kind of defense it is known for, and it helped them author another upset.
But, as Reyes would know, it all started with the right mindset.
