As Chris Ross’ offense starts to pick up, defending guard Jayson Castro still top priority

CHRIS Ross played a career game on Tuesday’s Game 4 of the PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals series between reigning back-to-back champion San Miguel Beer and TNT, tallying a personal-best 31 points, built around five three-point shots.

But despite his transformation as an offensive threat, the many- time steals leader still focused on what he does best — playing good defense.

The hustling Beermen guard limited the production of Jayson Castro, who was held to only two points in the first half before scoring 11 in the second half.

Ross made sure he will still be on top of things defensively despite playing with a more conscious effort on the offensive end.

“I always look at it on the defensive side, trying to limit Jayson, he’s been carving us up, averaging in double-double. I’m trying to look at it on defense, trying to limit Jayson. He makes them go. Offense is just a bonus. As long as I can limit Jayson, I’m happy,” Mr. Ross told

For Mr. Ross, being down 2-1 in the series isn’t new at all for the Beermen, who have always been trailing in most of the series they’ve been the past few years. But for the former Defensive Player of the Year, the sense of urgency had to come to play for the squad to avoid being pushed on the brink of losing the series — and being denied of their threepeat aspirations.

“I just want to come out aggressive offensively. If we’ll be down 3-1, it will be tough on us. I just want to lead by example. I’m usually the vocal leader, but BusinessWorld. DEFENDING TNT’s top point guard Jayson Castro has been the main priority of San Miguel’s defensive ace Chris Ross. tonight, I tried to lead by example in offense and tried to rub it off on my teammates,” said Mr. Ross.

“I just told the guys we’ve been here before. There’s nothing doing for us. We’ve been down 2-1 almost every time in the semis. I just told the guys it’s a long series, even it up and we’ll go from there. We can kinda change the game plan a little bit. We just have to watch films and get on the better things we’ve been doing.”

One among the players who had to adjust to accommodate the Beermen’s inside-out game is reigning three-time Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo, who had attracted double teams and gave his teammates good looks to the basket.

“We know the type of defense they’ve been running. It’s just that everyone were taking their shots and have confidence on themselves. I keep telling the guys they have to shoot the ball. Even though we’ve taken a lot of treys, that’s our game. We shot a lot of treys and made a lot of treys. The last two games we didn’t make it. Today we made some and kinda open up for June Mar (Fajardo). June Mar is making the right play. He sees the double and he’s kicking it to the open man and making easier for us,” he added.