The Fighting Maroons will leave it all on the floor in Game 3 on Wednesday.
The UP Fighting Maroons need not to look elsewhere to figure out what needs to be done come Game 3 of the UAAP Season 86 finals against the La Salle Green Archers.
After the Fighting Maroons' 82-60 loss to La Salle in Game 2, UP coach Goldwin Monteverde kept it short and simple.
“It is what it is, kung anong nangyari today,” he said when asked what he told his team after the match at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
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His calm demeanor didn’t mean he was complacent, though. There’s a sense or urgency, of course, with the championship at stake in Game 3.
“[We have to] look inside us kung anong dapat naming ginawa. Importante dito may Game 3 pa, andun pa ‘yung chance namin,” he said of the squad led by Mythical Team member Malick Diouf and veteran CJ Cansino.
The good news is that the Fighting Maroons have already moved on from that sorry loss and are now focusing on the learnings they may use when the two teams meet for one last time this season on Wednesday.
“‘Yung mga ganitong klaseng game would really teach us what kind of effort to put forth to be able to get ‘yung championship,”Monteverde added.
And so it is. Diouf, Cansino, and the rest of the Fighting Maroons will need to move on from that Game 2 shellacking and use whatever they learned from it to propel them in Game 3.
Of course, that is easier said than done, especially in a game with mammoth implications, not only for the teams but also for individual legacies.
Game time of the winner-take-all Game 3 for the championship is set at 6 p.m. at the same venue.
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(MDB)