Marcio Lassiter hardly made an impact as far as offense was concerned during his much-anticipated Gilas Pilipinas comeback in the fourth window FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.
Donning the tri-color jersey he last wore in 2011, Lassiter was naturally expected to shoot the lights out. The 6-foot-2 winger, though, shot poorly against Iran and Qatar.
San Miguel Beermen head coach Leo Austria had an explanation for his Lassiter's paltry output.
"If you noticed, he was scouted. There's always a body on him whenever he touched the ball," said Austria in Filipino.
When he couldn't rely on his offense, though, Lassiter turned up his defense. While some may not see that, there was no doubt in Austria's mind his prized shooter did a spectacular job on that end.
"He was so aggressive on defense he suffered a cut on his left eye," he said. "You can see how he really played defense. And when you play defense at that level, you wouldn't have the legs for offense."
But there was a stark contrast with what happened during the resumption of the San Miguel Beermen's campaign in the PBA Governors' Cup on Friday.
The fourth overall pick in the 2011 draft was deadly as ever from the three-point area. He was instrumental in the Beermen's masterful 143-119 win over Columbian Dyip after torching his foes with six three-pointers on his way to 28 markers.
For Lassiter, familiarity was key to finding his rhythm.
"I think. It's different style of play we have. I'm on a team I've been with for quite sometime. I got a pass-first point guard. He's always looking for our shooters. And just the chemistry is always something I'm more familiar with," Lassiter said.
A team needs lots of time to forge that kind of chemistry. Unfortunately, time was the luxury the national team didn't have heading into the qualifiers.
"I just feel like if we can get more familiarized with the offense. Sharing the ball is probably key. You know, I can break down a lot of things but we still got to get some good chemistry going together and it's a new team. Give credit, I think we did a great job with the amount of timing we had. And what coach Yeng (Guiao) brought to the table, it's hard to get everyone on the same page," he said.
Overall, SMB registered 23 triples in Friday's match which tied the all-time output made by Talk N' Text in January 2009. But Austria still expressed his disappointment over what he thought was his team's sloppy defense in first two quarters.
Before breaking the game wide open in the third period, the Beermen allowed the beleaguered Dyip to score 64 points in the first half and keep in step with the Beermen. In fact, if not for Arwind Santos' three-pointers in the second period, the Beermen could have fallen at intermission.
"Our offense may be number one in the league, but the problem is our defense," Austria said.
"In the first half, we gave up 64 points and that's not a sign of good defense. Fortunately our offense was superb tonight. I'm happy because we won but said because we're not playing good defense."