Dubai: Defeat, then victory is what pleased Talk N Text coach Chot Reyes most as he boarded his flight back to Manila Saturday night, following a largely successful UAE excursion for Philippines basketball.
Following two hotly contested back-to-back PBA Governors' Cup eliminations at Al Shabab Club on Thursday and Friday, Reyes' men lost to B-Meg 111-105, but recovered in time to outwit Ginebra 123-113.
Gulf News caught up with Reyes at Dubai Mall while he was doing some last minute shopping. Giving his views on the game, the coach said: "My disappointment with that loss was compensated by my joy at last nights game [against Ginebra]. Coming over I was thinking we'd get the first game and drop the second just because of fatigue. But it turned out to be the other way round."
Conviction
"I think the first match loss stung us so much that they came in Saturday with a different type of conviction," said Reyes.
Speaking of the blip to their otherwise 100 per cent record in the Governors' Cup (where they've now won four, lost one) Reyes added: "We lost in the one area where we shouldn't be losing matches, which is effort. B-Meg wanted that game more than we did. So I told them for game two just focus on effort."
"Making sure we outwork the other side, essentially that's what happened [in match two]. If we outwork the other team everything takes care of itself especially offence — I'm very happy, not only with the win but that we showed a lot of character to turn things around and come out 50-50."
Having won The Philippine Cup and The Commissioners Cup already in 2010/11, Reyes could be on course to be only the fifth coach in PBA's 36-year history to complete a historic treble.
Distraction
"We're not thinking about that at all. We've completely taken that off our minds for now because its too much of a distraction."
Reyes added: "We came here thinking this is a turnaround series. After the first loss if we didn't recover, it might have been the start of a slide. But turning that around and winning really is going to help us with what we want to achieve in this tournament — whatever momentum we lost we got right back with that victory."
Reyes said he was confident of their performance in the three games left to play. "I think we will do well after this [trip]," he added.
