“Well siyempre, after the incident, sarap lang talaga maglaro ng basketball ulit, I’m just happy I’m back again, playing and helping my teammates.”
Monday night in their 2018 PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals Game 2 loss to San Miguel, Jeron Teng finished with 13 points, three rebounds, and three assists in 21 minutes for the Alaska Aces.
And while it was a loss that pushed Alaska to the brink of elimination, head coach Alex Compton saw a bit of a silver lining in Teng’s performance.
“I thought he did a great job. It's been a crazy time for Jeron but for him to start to get his timing back and play more, be in better shape, I don't think you would think that Jeron got stabbed a month ago and we'd be worried about his life at the hospital.”
A little over a month ago, Teng, along with former DLSU teammates Thomas Torres and Norbert Torres were involved in a scuffle that led to all three getting deep lacerations.
Teng’s perfomance in Game 2 was his best since the unfortunate incident.
“If you watched the game and didn't know the situation, you would have never thought that that happened. To be able to play 21 minutes and mix it up, I thought it was great.” Compton added.
Indeed, it has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Teng, but more than anything, he’s just thankful to be on the floor and contributing again.
“Well siyempre, after the incident, sarap lang talaga maglaro ng basketball ulit, I’m just happy I’m back again, playing and helping my teammates.”
And while he did put up solid numbers, Teng believes that he could do more, especially now that their backs are against the wall.
“Next game lang, we just have to play better. I have to play better parin kasi siyempre we lost, may mga points of improvement pa ako from this game, and it’s another experience from me.”
As thankful as he was to be back on the court again, Teng also expressed his gratitude to the Alaska organization, who has been with him through all of this.
“Siyempre it feels great, with the incident, the whole Alaska organization was behind me talaga, they supported me, they visited me, even si Boss [Wilfred] Uytengsu and yung mga coaches, they visited me in the hospital and they’re really supportive with what happened and the case na on-going, so sobrang thankful ko talaga sa kanila, sa buong Alaska organization.”
Now, with the bitter memories of that fateful night in BGC behind him, Teng is just hungry to win and hopefully to help his team to a title.
“Ako, gustong-gusto ko talaga maka-abot ng finals eh, mag-champion.”
For Teng, a title would help remove the sting of the ordeal.
“After ng incident, siguro pag nag-champion kami, makakalimutan ko na yun.”
It’s going to be an uphill battle for Teng and the Aces to even come close to a finals berth however, as they’re now down 2-0 in a best-of-five series against the defending champions.
Teng and the Aces face San Miguel in Game 3 on Wednesday, July 18th at the Araneta Coliseum.
https://sports.abs-cbn.com/pba/news/2018/07/16/teng-happy-helping-alaska-court-44524
No comments:
Post a Comment