A tale of wrong pair of shoes, huge double-double

MANILA, Philippines — NorthPort import Venky Jois went at it so hard that he broke his right shoe in the fourth quarter and played through it for some time before a replacement shoe was produced.

Finishing the game wearing his own Nike LeBron 20 NXXT Gen X Faze Clan on his left foot and a borrowed Nike Ja 1 Hunger on the right, Jois posted a monster 39-21 double-double to lead the Batang Pier past Converge, 111-95, in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup last night.

Jois made 17 of his 27 attempts all game for a whopping 63-percent marksmanship and added six assists, four blocks and one steal as NorthPort went back-to-back for 4-2 overall.

The Australian dynamo outplayed Converge counterpart Jamil Wilson, who posted a 30-13 PBA debut but failed to get the FiberXers (0-6) out of their funk.

“Coach (Bonnie Tan) said we had to play harder than the other team and from the first second of the game, that’s what we tried to do. And I attribute it to practicing hard every single day,” said Jois, who is also waging this battle with hamstring issues.

Jois attended the post-game press conference still donning the mismatched shoes.

“It never happened to me before but I burst through it, maybe on a jump fake or spin. My foot actually came outside of the shoe and I was trying to play, my foot kept slipping out of the shoe so we had to change it,” he said.

“Luckily, someone had a spare.”

Jois, though, decided to keep his favorite Lebron on his left.