PBA: Almazan is Player of the Week
Finally settled with Meralco, Raymond Almazan exactly showed what he can do for the Bolts.
Almazan helped the Bolts rally back from a 16-point deficit by hitting the go-ahead three-pointer in a 98-92 win over defending PBA Governors Cup champion Magnolia Hotshots.
The 6-foot-8 Almazan finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds in his first game back from the last FIBA World Cup in China.
The late game heroic by the 30-year-old center, acquired in a trade with Rain or Shine in the last Commissioner’s Cup, earned for him the first Cignal-PBA Press Corps (PBAPC) Player of the Week award for the season-ending meet.
Almazan edged sizzling rookie CJ Perez of Columbian Dyip in a tight voting for the weekly honor.
Perez, coming off a sensational FIBA World Cup stint with Gilas Pilipinas, put up scintillating numbers of 25.0 points and 11.5 rebounds as the Dyip split their first two games of the conference.
Five other players were also in the running for the weekly citation, but only Almazan and Perez received votes from members of the media group regularly covering the PBA beat.
Also nominated for the honor were NorthPort rookie Robert Bolick, comebacking NLEX guard Kiefer Ravena, Barangay Ginebra big man Greg Slaughter, Rain or Shine guard Rey Nambatac, and Almazan’s Meralco teammate Chris Newsome.
