{"id":186930,"date":"2014-12-09T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T18:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=186930"},"modified":"2014-12-09T04:00:14","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T18:00:14","slug":"jericho-earns-best-player-game-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/jericho-earns-best-player-game-honors\/","title":{"rendered":"Jericho earns Best Player of the Game honors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jericho<\/a>
Jericho Cruz celebrates after scoring the breakaway layup that sealed Rain or Shine\u2019s victory against Alaska last week in the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup. (KC Cruz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nJericho Cruz finally had his break out game in a Rain or Shine jersey as the former CNMI National Team member helped his team complete a come-from-behind 98-95 win over Alaska last week in the Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup.<\/p>\n

Cruz scored 10 points in the fourth quarter for the Elasto Painters, including the team\u2019s last 4 that sealed ROS\u2019 place in the semifinals of the PBA\u2019s season-opening conference. He finished with 16 markers, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals to earn Best Player of the Game honors.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old former Adamson King Falcon and the Painters\u2019 ninth overall pick in this year\u2019s rookie draf, capped his impressive performance with a breakaway layup to secure Rain or Shine\u2019s sixth straight win.<\/p>\n

Cruz was the third best scorer for the Elasto Painters behind shifty guard Paul Lee\u2019s 19-point, 8-rebound, 5-assist performance and big man Beau Belga\u2019s double-double of 16 markers and 12 boards.<\/p>\n

It was Cruz\u2019s third time in his rookie season to score in double digits, with the first one recorded in ROS\u2019 117-88 demolition of expansion team and the Manny Pacquioa-coached Kia Sorentos, as he finished with 12 points. He then tallied 15 markers, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals in the Painters\u2019 107-79 crushing of Meralco in a PBA out-of-town game in Davao City.<\/p>\n

Cruz\u2019s heroics earned him the admiration of Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao. <\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial mention to Jericho Cruz. He played like a veteran. He made us look good when we picked him in the rookie draft,\u201d said the outspoken mentor in the postgame interview with sports website Spin.ph<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made his free throws, defended well, and made those baskets. It certainly made us look good drafting him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cruz said that he was just repaying the trust given to him by Guiao.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re happy we got this win. I hope it would continue in the semis round. I thank coach Yeng for the trust he has given me and to my teammates for all the help,\u201d Cruz added.<\/p>\n

The Painters ended the conference with 9-2 card following a 100-90 triumph over crowd favorite Barangay Ginebra last Sunday to earn one of the two automatic semis berths in the Philippine Cup. (Jon Perez)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jericho Cruz finally had his break out game in a Rain or Shine jersey as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":186937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}