Jarin heaps praises on Phoenix’s level of maturity

Phoenix head coach Jamike Jarin allowed his wards figure out a way to pull through in the waning seconds of a back-and-forth duel with streaking Rain or Shine.

His players, especially Ken Tuffin, rewarded him with the Fuel Masters’ first back-to-back wins in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup.

Without calling a timeout, Jarin let his men to execute on the last play on their own with Tuffin being at the right place at the right time to clean up the missed jumper of Jason Perkins for the game-winning basket in a 93-91 victory Saturday at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

“You know Coach Yeng (Guiao) and I, usually don’t call timeouts. We like the players (making their own decisions). It’s part of their maturity especially with a very young team like ours. Coach Yeng also has a very young team. So, it’s an opportunity for these young men to get that experience,” Jarin said.

It paid off as Phoenix improved to a 3-5 win-loss record while halting the Elasto Painters’ five-game romp.

And now the Fuel Masters are back in the playoffs race picture after a shaky start including a four-game slide in their mid-season conference campaign.

“We’re happy but we can’t be satisfied because we had chances to get a better record, so I blame myself for that,” Jarin added.

“Confidence is getting better. Of course, anytime you get two wins in a row, you’ll always have that confidence going into the next game.”

The Fuel Masters barged into the win column after taking down league-leading NorthPort last December. Although they suffered a loss to Converge in their final game of 2024, they bounced back mightily with a 122-108 triumph over winless Terrafirma last Tuesday.

Donovan Smith was again at the forefront of Phoenix’s assault with 22 points and 10 rebounds. He had plenty of help with Tyler Tio scoring 16, RR Garcia posting 14, while Perkins and RJ Jazul added 12 and 11, respectively.

Tuffin finished with eight.