Purefoods not looking past Air21

Although Purefoods is only a win away from barging into the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) San Mig Coffee Fiesta Conference Finals, Chunkee Giants coach Ryan Gregorio said yesterday he’s not getting ahead of himself.

Purefoods plays Air21 in Game 5 of their best-of-7 semifinal duel at the Araneta Coliseum tonight and sitting on a 3-1 cushion, will dispose of the Express for good with a victory.

"You can never take Air21 lightly," said Gregorio. "At this stage, I’m not even thinking of the Finals. We’re focused on beating Air21, that’s all. Maybe, San Miguel Beer and Talk ‘N’ Text made the mistake of looking past Air21. We know Air21 is a dangerous team."

The Express upset San Miguel, 2-1, in a best-of-3 wildcard series and the Phone Pals, 3-2, in the best-of-5 quarterfinals.

What’s keeping Purefoods a hot favorite to advance to the Finals is its unforgiving defense.

"It’s not about our offense, it’s about our defense," said Gregorio who led Purefoods to its last championship in 2002 in his first conference on the bench. "We owe that to (assistant coach) Koy Banal who’s hands-on when it comes to defense like (assistant coach) Ronnie Magsanoc is to offense. Against Air21, we’ve made a conscious effort to hold them down to 90 or less. The two games they scored 100 or more against us in the conference, they won."

Gregorio, 33, said Purefoods isn’t the strongest squad in the league, man for man, and has problems matching up against bigger teams. But a commitment to hard work is what’s propelling the Giants.

"If other teams flap their wings twice, we’ve got to do it thrice," said Gregorio. "We can’t just be present for a game. We’ve got to work extra hard to win and we’ve got to do it as a team. That’s the only way we can survive."

Gregorio said the players are self-motivated and don’t need a special incentive to achieve.

"This is our first trip to the semifinals in the last eight conferences," said Gregorio. "For the veterans like Kerby (Raymundo) and Noy (Castillo), they’re just happy to see the rewards of our rebuilding process. We all knew there would be a lot of losing before we start winning. This is the result of hard work, vision and patience. As for the new guys like Jondon (Salvador), Marc (Pingris) and Roger (Yap), they’re happy to be in a good working environment where our approach to the game is positive and where nobody points a finger at anybody or blames the other person for something that doesn’t go right."

Gregorio said in the Air21 series, Castillo sat out Game 2 because he rushed his wife to the hospital. And in Game 3, he was out of synch with two points in 17 minutes. But before Game 4, Gregorio asked Castillo if he was ready to start because Roger Yap wasn’t 100 percent. Castillo took it as a challenge and erupted for 24 points, his outside bombs opening up the inside for Purefoods import Marquin Chandler.

"It’s the same thing with Marc who scored 23 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in Game 4," said Gregorio. "I also challenged him. Marc plays with raw emotion. He’s very athletic. I told him he has nothing to prove to Air21, his former team. But he has something to prove to Purefoods for getting him in the trade."

As for veteran Jun Limpot, Gregorio said he’s never seen "Papa Jun" play defense more seriously. "Papa Jun used to think about his points and minutes," said Gregorio. "Now, he has another role to play and he’s getting extensive minutes. Against Air21, he’s defending (Shawn) Daniels and that’s a tough assignment."

Gregorio said when the Giants lost three of their last four games in the classifications, he wasn’t worried.

"We’re not used to being in a winning situation," said Gregorio. "The losses were like the tuition fee we paid for our maturity which takes a while to gain. Anyway, we were just a win away from entering the semis outright so we had a cushion. It was a good learning experience for us, something we used in Game 4 against Air21, when we blew a 26-point lead but we were still up by six at the start of the fourth period, so it was a matter of preserving our advantage."

Gregorio said team manager Alvin Patrimonio and Magsanoc are contributing heavily to Purefoods’ surge.