 |
| Cliff Hodge did not take offense at coach Yeng Guiao calling him the "dirtiest player in the PBA." Peter Baltazar |
MANILA—Meralco forward Cliff Hodge implied that he somehow expected Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao to lash out at him after his unsportsmanlike foul badly hurt Adrian Nocum's leg in the third quarter of their PBA Governors' Cup game at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.
Asked for a reaction moments after Guiao called him the "dirtiest player in the PBA," Hodge said the remark was fine with him.
"Coach Yeng always hasn't liked me, so whatever his word he says, it's OK. I play hard for my team. That's all I do," Hodge said.
"Coach Yeng is coach Yeng. The world knows. He likes to do that, so I'm just letting him do what he does. That's his personality. No hard feelings for me."
Recounting what happened between him and Nocum, Hodge said, "I saw him coming full speed. I wanted to go and take a charge. At the moment, he sidestepped right into both my knees, and he dished it. So we both went down."
The flagrant foul somehow dampened a solid performance from the six-foot-five workhorse, all the more so that the Bolts still lost to the Elasto Painters behind Aaron Fuller's game-winning layup off a Nocum assist.
Hodge had 14 points on 7-for-10 shooting, five rebounds, and two assists off the bench, but they were not enough to keep Meralco from dropping its third straight game.
