MANILA, Philippines – If he would have it his way, NLEX head coach Yeng Guiao would rather not have Kiefer Ravena carry the scoring burden for the Road Warriors on a nightly basis. 

Not that Guiao does not want Ravena to end up with huge numbers, but he believes the Road Warriors are thriving when more people are involved in the offense.

Ravena turned in a career-high 31 points on 12-of-20 shooting to go with 5 assists, 4 rebounds, 4 steals and no turnovers against Magnolia Sunday, January 14, but the Hotshots still hacked out a 105-94 win.

It was a display of basketball brilliance and composure for the rookie, but is wasn’t enough to prevent the Road Warriors from suffering their second straight loss after winning their first two. 

JR Quinahan and Kevin Alas were the only other Road Warriors who reached double figures with 22 and 13 points, respectively, while only Michael Miranda and Larry Fonacier finished with at least 7 points after posting 9 and 8 points apiece.

On the other hand, the Hotshots had 4 players having double-digit nights while 4 others ended up with at least 7 points.

“Kiefer played a great game today offensively but that’s not our style of play. We don’t want one player to take over the game offensively and try to bring us or carry us on his shoulders for us to win,” said Guiao.

But the firebrand coach added that Ravena’s big night was a result of NLEX resorting to desperate measures when the other players’ shots were not falling.

“Sometimes you don’t have a choice. If all your other offensive options are not working, then we just have to go with what he’s working. In this situation, it was Kiefer,” said Guiao.

“But I told the team, if we have to do it that way, we’re not going to win too many games. With our system, we always won more games when more people got involved and more people scored in double figures.”

Rebounding woes

Another problem the Road Warriors will be facing when they clash against the San Miguel Beermen next on Friday,January 19 is their deficiency in rebounding.

In their first loss of the season against Phoenix, the Road Warriors were beaten by 9 more offensive boards, which the Fuel Masters used to score 22 second chance points. Against the Hotshots, NLEX surrendered 19 rebounds. 

Facing an undefeated foe in San Miguel which has one of the biggest frontcourts in the league in June Mar Fajardo and Arwind Santos, NLEX will have plenty on its hands to take care of.

“San Miguel has the upper hand now, and if you want to beat San Miguel, this is the best time to beat them, although no team has yet found a formula to beat them this conference,” said Guiao.

“Pero mas mahirap silang talunin next conference pag nandyan na si Standhardinger, so siguro all the teams stand their best chance of beating them now, and in the future, baka walang ng tumalo sa kanila, kaya habang maaga, pagpursigihan na natin na talunin ang San Miguel. And we’ll prepare hard for them for Friday.”

(They will be harder to beat next conference when Christian Standhardinger arrives so probably all the teams stand their best chance of beating them now. In the future, there will probably be no team that can beat them so as soon as possible, we will work hard to beat San Miguel. We’ll prepare hard for them on Friday.) – Rappler.com