Magnolia: ‘Introboys’ no more

Magnolia wants to shed off its “introboys” tag following a great start in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup.

Racking up five wins in a row to stay as the only remaining unblemished team, head coach Chito Victolero vows to work on keeping the fire in his men blazing as they approach the halfway mark of the all-Filipino Conference.

“It’s all about our mindset,” the mentor said after the Hotshots bludgeoned Terrafirma, 127-94, Sunday night at the Ynares Center in Antipolo.

Magnolia unleashed a huge 23-0 run in the second quarter to create significant separation before blowing the game wide open with a 33-point margin.

All 15 players Victolero fielded contributed points, a testament to the Hotshots’ utilization of their deep pool of talents.

‘We cannot afford to relax now because we’ll face NLEX.’

“I guess that’s our biggest advantage, we have a deep bench. I usually use 12 to 13 players every time and now I used 15. I think down the stretch or towards the latter part of the conference, it might help us have fresh legs,” he said.

“We have a system where we need pace on our offense and defense. Our rotation is very important in how we run our system. We keep on trying to rotate so that we’ll have fresh legs to do what we wanted to do.”

The next big challenge now for Magnolia is sustaining its red-hot run.

The Hotshots are in for a tough grind on Sunday against second-running NLEX, which is on a three-game win streak.

“We cannot afford to relax now because we’ll face NLEX, which I think is one of the hottest teams right now after winning three consecutive games. We’ll prepare for battle on Sunday,” Victolero said, adding that he’ll start preparing his squad on Tuesday.

Zav Lucero, who has shown consistency in the winning tear, shares the same mindset.

“I think whoever is in front of us, whatever our next game is, the approach has to be the same, the preparation has to be the same,” added the young forward, who scored 17 points and grabbed nine boards in Magnolia’s latest conquest.

“We’re unbeaten right now, and we want to keep it that way. We have to prepare the right way and we have to get into it with the right mindset,” he added.

“Any team can beat us on any given day and we know that. We just have to play the right way, come prepared and we should be fine.”