Players told to keep cool vs hecklers

MANILA, Philippines — Shooter Matthew Wright of the Phoenix Fuel Masters has this unsolicited advice to his fellow PBA players: Ignore hecklers.

“Turn the other cheek whenever there’s someone heckling you,” said Wright in the aftermath of the stabbing incident involving his old friend and fellow Fil-Canadian, Norbert Torres, and two other young players, Jeron Teng and Thomas Torres.

The three former La Salle Green Archers were capping a night of fun early Sunday morning when they were involved in an ugly altercation at BGC.

There are varying reports as to what led to the altercation but the police said it was allegedly triggered by some heckling from the other party.

The two Torreses, who are not related, and Teng ended up in the hospital with stab wounds but have all been declared out of danger.

The other camp claimed self-defense in the incident.

“The best thing to do is just avoid any confrontation. You never know what they (other people) are  capable of doing,” Wright told scribes yesterday at the PBA office in Libis.

Wright, who had played for Gilas Pilipinas, described the incident as a “freak accident.”

“And it was unfortunate that something like that has to happen.

But nothing really good happens after 2 a.m. on a night out.

We just hope that Norbert, Thomas and Jeron have a speedy recovery.

That’s all we can wish for at this point,” he said.

Wright said he has spoken to his friend from Canada, Torres, who plays for Rain or Shine, and hoped him the best in his recovery.

“He’s okay now. He’s in good spirits. He said he tried to break the fight. But he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s going on rehab and hoping to rejoin the team as soon as possible,” said Wright.

It was totally surprising, according to the Phoenix star forward, to hear about the incident.

“I was really surprised because you don’t normally hear about PBA players being stabbed. It came to me as a shock,” he said.

Right or wrong, avoid hecklers.