Player of the Week April 18 to 24

TALK N Text coach Chot Reyes wants his team to be known as an unselfish lot, one that prides itself on teamwork.

Even among so many clusters of stars, however, one is bound to shine the most and Jimmy Alapag just did.

The man nicknamed “Mighty Mouse” helped make sure the Tropang Texters’ path to the 2011 PBA Commissioner’s Cup would be clear by coming up big in the game that mattered most, earning for himself the Accel-PBA Press Corps Player of the Week honors for the period April 18 to 24.

The citation is the first for any TNT player for the conference and slightly goes against Reyes’ grain.

“Sayang! We wanted to go through an entire tournament where none of our players gets POTW honors as a sign of our teammanship,” Reyes half-jokingly reasoned.

Turning more serious, Reyes added: “I hope it’s a sign that Jimmy’s game is peaking for the Finals.”

It does seem like it after the heady playmaker scored 27 points and dished off four assists in TNT’s 118-104 victory over Air21 last Wednesday, capping the Manny V. Pangilinan-owned franchise’s three-game sweep of the Express in their best-of-five semifinals duel.

It also spiked Alapag’s notable all-around performance in the duel, which saw him finish with averages of 15.6 points, 5.0 assists, 2.0 rebounds and 1.3 steals.

With TNT going up against Barangay Ginebra in the race-to-four championship series, the likes of Kelly Williams, Ryan Reyes, Ranidel de Ocampo and Harvey Carey are also expected to chiefly provide import Paul Harris with support.

It is also most certain Alapag will be pointing the Texters in the right direction.