Big blow for ROS as Keith Datu suffers season-ending injury
At A Glance
- Rain or Shine just couldn't catch a break as big man Keith Datu suffered a season-ending knee injury after the Elasto Painters' 91-80 victory over the Phoenix Fuel Masters on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
Rain or Shine just couldn’t catch a break as big man Keith Datu suffered a season-ending knee injury after the Elasto Painters’ 91-80 victory over the Phoenix Fuel Masters on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
According to a source and was later on confirmed by the Elasto Painters, Datu sustained a ruptured patellar tendon injury after he slipped while driving to the basket at the 7:47 mark of the third quarter.
The injury was said to be the same as that of Jayson Castro which required him to go under the knife to repair. The TNT guard has yet to return to court after suffering the injury last February.
With Datu facing a long layoff, the already undermanned Elasto Painters just got even thinner at the frontline with Caelan Tiongson and Luis Villegas still recovering from their respective injuries and Beau Belga remaining in minute restriction.
That left ROS with Leonard Santillan, Gabe Norwood and Kris Porter as the team’s healthy big men.
“Mahirap kasi na mina-manage namin yung minutes ni Beau, tapos si Keith nagkaproblema ngayon, tapos si Caelan injured rin, baka puro gwardya na lang ilaro namin pagkaganun. We just have to find ways,” said Guiao.
The glaring hole inside the middle was very obvious in the game against Phoenix as Guiao admitted that the team struggled to contain Jason Perkins in some stretches of the contest.
“We had some problems containing Jason Perkins for a stretch. He was just having his way in the middle. Because nga, kulang kami sa malaki. Yung laki ng katawan ni Gabe, yun na lang ang pinanglalaban namin dun sa katawan ni Perkins. But, it paid off,” he added.
Good thing for ROS after its game against NLEX on Saturday, Nov. 8, the team will have a week's rest that should be valuable for their injured players.
“It is a good thing na yung nangyari we have time to figure something out in the next three weeks.