The easy part was believing.
Believing that sheer holdover talent and the “next man up” could patch the holes, that momentum could outrun inconsistency, that one good weekend could erase a bad one.
For that good week, it looked like then-cohesive La Salle Archers were finally piecing it together — the offense humming smoothly, the defense tightening, the rotation starting to breathe in sync.
Good times never last; they get challenged.
And here comes the hard part.
This is the final stretch of the regular season where the grind starts chewing back. When the scouting reports know you better than you know yourself. When every screen gets bumped, every cut gets shadowed, and every possession feels like you’re trying to thread a pass through the long line at the MRT stations at rush hour.
If the first half of the season was about discovery, the second half will be about endurance.
Because the real major test isn’t whether you can win when everything’s clicking — it’s whether you can survive when that smooth rhythm clunks.
Can you adjust when your jumper turns cold?
Can you still defend when the calls don’t fall your way?
Can you stay connected when the seams start to fray under the noise?
The Green Archers just learned that lesson the hard way.
National U and this aggressive bunch of mad rugged Bulldogs made sure of it.
In a game that felt more like an ECG stress test than a basketball contest, the Bulldogs didn’t just outscore La Salle — they consumed them, then outlasted them. They dragged the Archers into deep water and kept their heads there until the horn.
Free throws, missed. Point-blank looks, overshot. Those are the misses that stay with you. The ones that whisper about discipline, not luck.
NU’s defense was RUTHLESS.
Every single thing Jacob Cortez liked to do — from the high screens and slashing lanes to that Stockton-to-Malone pocket pass with either Luis Pablo or Motor Mike — PFFFFT. Swallowed whole. Every read, every rhythm, every habit.
For a player who thrives on fluidity, the bruising Bulldogs bumped, grabbed, and jumped into Cortez relentlessly.
And on rare occasions, Cortez somehow slithered through all of that. Omar John was waiting, arms spread like a boss battle you can’t skip.
Cortez still led all greens with 16, but seven of those came early, when the game still had daylight. By the fourth, he was running the offense more than he was attacking it, uncharacteristically throwing emergency passes late in the shot clock.
Motor Mike?
Same story.
Eleven points total. But five came in that first ten minutes — including that buzzer-beating bank shot triple that somehow became the highlight of the game for La Salle.
After that, silence. One field goal, five rebounds. Five rebounds. For a guy who once dominated the glass by grabbing a record of 40 boards. That’s not just stats — that’s NU flexing absolute three-quarters control.
With both engines jammed, the Bulldogs passively let the others try to carry it. Earl Abadam went for it, fearless as always, but it felt like he was sprinting uphill while everyone else was still finding the map.
And that’s how the Bulldogs win games, calm, poised, precise, and surgical. They don’t need to outrun you. They just need to wait until you run out of fumes and dance out of rhythm.
So this is the wall. The one we talked about after the UE win.
The one that doesn’t care how talented you are — only how you respond when the game stops being pretty.
When the sets break down. When the reads vanish. When it’s chaos, and someone’s gotta just make something happen.
This is when you need your Kean Baclaans — guys who can create from thin air, who thrive in the noise, who can steady the pulse when everything tilts. Or Mason Amos’ ability to create out of emergency post-ups or drain that consistent wing triple.
We needed more of that from Abadam. We needed JC Macalalag to find that same gear he showed against UST, especially after the Vhoris Marasigan ejection thinned out the rotation.
Good news is that every contender hits this stretch, the stretch when talent alone can’t save you, when execution and poise start carrying more weight than potential.
The hard part isn’t losing. It’s what happens next.
How do you respond when your shots betray you?
When the pressure tightens?
When it’s just not your afternoon?
That’s where La Salle stands now.
6–4 doesn’t tell the whole story. Behind it is a team wrestling with itself — trying to rediscover control, cohesion, belief. Not in the highlight reels. In the grind.
The climb isn’t over.
It’s just getting real.
And it can’t get any more real than Ateneo next on the Sunday docket.
ANIMO LA SALLE!
