There’s this saying, “Know your personnel.” And it appears NLEX Road Warriors coach Jong Uichico is taking it to heart, adapting his coaching style and principles to the players he is coaching at the moment.
One thing in particular that Uichico has done at NLEX is have his team playing hard and defending tenaciously, which certainly suits his blue-collar guys like Anthony Semerad, Brandon Ramirez, and JB Bahio.
“Hindi namin talaga kayang i-outscore ‘yung mga teams. Hindi lang ‘yun kami,” Uichico told reporters after NLEX beat the Meralco Bolts on Sunday. “Okay kung ganun kami, okay ako, but siyempre, kilalanin mo ‘yung team mo—hanggang saan niyo kaya ‘yung opensa niyo. Then you try to defend the best way you can…”
Uichico’s Road Warriors are defending, all right, especially in the last two games, holding the Bolts to 85 points and the Phoenix Fuel Masters to 81 in back-to-back wins that hiked NLEX’s record to 3-1 in this PBA Philippine Cup.
Uichico’s Vision for NLEX
Uichico, in the same postgame presser, also acknowledged that he just wants his team competing hard against the league’s elite—and the results will take care of themselves.
“Ang vision ko lang naman sa NLEX is for us to be able to compete with the strong teams. Just compete. If we compete every day, bahala na yung resulta…,” Uichico pointed out. “But we need to compete talaga every game. If we don’t compete, our chances of winning games lessen. So, we try. We try to outwork and out-execute the opponent. That’s what we try to do in every game. That’s how we have a chance of garnering some wins.”
That formula has been working. NLEX already has wins over the San Miguel Beermen and the Meralco Bolts, who are both champion teams and among the league’s elite. But the Road Warriors will have to try even harder, with title contenders like TNT Tropang 5G and Converge FiberXers still on the horizon.
