Meralco and Rain or Shine downplayed the verbal exchange between Nenad Vucinic and Beau Belga during the fourth quarter of their Philippine Basketball Association Governors’ Cup game late Sunday at the Ynares Center in Antipolo City.
Bolts head coach Luigi Trillo said their Serbian-Kiwi consultant was just telling Belga that he wasn’t the one he was talking to during the height of the commotion that happened with only 8:10 left of their 121-111 win.
Both Vucinic and Belga got into a heated exchange of words that prompted Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao to jump in and get involved.
Guiao, Belga, and Vucinic were slapped with technical fouls.
“Beau started it. I think coach Nenad just wanted to tell him that he was not the one to talk to and he left,” Trillo said following their emotional victory.
“He’s not the type of person to do that, who would talk to players. It’s not in him.”
After the game, Guiao didn’t shake Vucinic’s hand before walking away.
Guiao he was just doing his best protecting his players.
“I don’t know what happened but he was picking up an argument with Beau. I was just telling him (Vucinic) to not talk to the players,” Guiao said, trying his best to downplay the incident.
“But I don’t think it’s anything important. I don’t think its relevant for it to be talked about.”
Meanwhile, Belga said both him and Vucinic were driven by the heat of the moment.
“I told him to stop acting like it was that something strange happened, they (referee) might do something,” Belga said.
“But of course, I want to win. He likes it, too. But give the referees that, it doesn’t look good.”