Sickness fails to stop Lassiter
‘As soon as I got sick, I wanted to be there for my teammates.’
MARCIO Lassiter celebrates after formally breaking the PBA all-time three-point record during San Miguel Beer’s 131-82 win over Barangay Ginebra in the Governors’ Cup.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PBA
What makes Marcio Lassiter’s date with history extra remarkable is the fact that he did it weeks after a serious bout with food poisoning.
Dehydrated and 12 pounds lighter, the San Miguel Beer sniper battled to get back into game shape as quickly as possible to help the Beermen in their Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup campaign.
“As soon as I got sick, I wanted to be there for my teammates. But when you lose like 12 pounds, it’s kinda hard to get back to it and regain my strength,” Lassiter said.
But with the record of becoming the all-time three-point leader in sight and San Miguel needing his veteran presence, Lassiter worked his way back to his old dangerous form.
And he did.
On Sunday, the 37-year-old became the gold standard of the league’s three-point shooters by hitting six treys to surpass legend Jimmy Alapag in the all-time triples made list in the Beermen’s 131-82 demolition of Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.
Lassiter collected a career total of 1,254 treys, surpassing Alapag’s total by four.
To cap his record-setting feat, Lassiter also captured the Pilipinas Live-PBA Press Corps Player of the Week honor for the period of 10 to 15 September.
He regained his true form by averaging 17 points this week with an impressive 15-of-27 three-point shooting.
Lassiter got hospitalized due to food poisoning and missed San Miguel’s first two games of the season.
He suited up in the team’s third outing but barely spent seven minutes inside the court and missed his lone attempt from the outside in San Miguel’s first round loss to the Kings.
“I didn’t have the legs. I was really feeling it. I was trying not to put pressure on myself because I knew part of it is I just wasn’t there yet strength-wise. Thankful for coach Jorge for trusting in me and I knew I had to back it up and just keep putting the hard work in,” Lassiter said.
He was back to his shooting ways last week.
On Wednesday, Lassiter overtook Allan Caidic at second place after making four in San Miguel’s 119-114 win over NLEX, then moved to two threes shy of tying Alapag by converting five in their 139-127 victory over Phoenix last Friday.