‘Don’t get hurt playing basketball’

SANTA CLARITA, California – Chris Algieri dropped by at the StubHub Center last Saturday to watch the action and talk about his coming fight with Manny Pacquiao.

The pride of Huntington in New York faced a bunch of scribes like he just came out of a fashion magazine.

He looked every inch a celebrity.

Algieri, who has yet to taste defeat as a boxer, said training for the Nov. 23 match in Macau has been going so well he had the time to spare here.

He’s so confident of victory over the Filipino pride.

“I’m a very positive person. In my mind I see nothing but victory,” he said in the 15-minute interview.

“We have a game and now we only have to enact it. The confidence is building,” he added.

Since beating Ruslan Provodnikov last June and sealing the fight with Pacquiao, Algieri said life has changed, saying he’d jog in his neighborhood and cars follow him.

But he likes it and is getting used to it.

Algieri said he’s focused on his own training and that he doesn’t need to know everything Pacquiao does in training or how he prepares for the fight.

But he’s quite aware that Pacquiao was scheduled to play professional basketball in the Philippines.

He had one thing to say though.

“Manny, please don’t get hurt playing basketball. I want the fight to happen,” he said.