By NIKOLE JAVIER
Give Juan Gomez de Liaño some significant minutes on the floor and he will register his best performance yet in Europe.
The former Fighting Maroon star showed some flashes of his brilliance on both ends after delivering 22 points including five steals and four assists in BC Wolves’ 89-60 drubbing of the Valmiera Glass Via in the European North Basketball League on Tuesday, Jan. 10.
After a scoreless outing in the Wolves’ 79-77 escape act against Tartu Ulikool a day prior, the 23-year-old guard’s worth couldn’t have been more apparent for the Lithuanian club.
With a minute and a half left in the contest, Gomez de Liaño continued his assault to the helpless Valmiera and finished with 5-of-9 shooting clip from beyond the arc.
“ really just staying ready whenever my opportunity comes. I’ve always had the mindset of next man up. Like I said, back-to-back games are tiring and my teammates were pretty sore and I’m glad coach gave me the chance to play and I was able to show what I can do and help the team in whatever way I can,” said de Liaño.
On Monday, de Liaño couldn’t make anything out of his six minutes of play.
Despite the strain of back-to-back games that took toll on the team, Gomez de Liaño was glad to register both wins at the end of the day.
“It’s pretty tough. Back-to-back games are pretty tiring. But in those two games, we really emphasized a lot on the defense, we take a lot of pride in that. And I feel like winning those two games, we focused on our defense and on the offensive end, we just really let it flow. Besides that, we just really stuck to the game plan. Glad we got the two ,” he added.
Almost exactly a year ago, Gomez de Liaño’s Japan B.League stint came to an abrupt end following the undisclosed details of the “mutual agreement” that took place between him and the Earthfriends Tokyo Z.
Gomez de Liaño then took his act back at home with the last being with the Marinerong Pilipino in the PBA D-League before ultimately finding his way to Europe.