为什么我不能在编辑cakephp 3.7之前编辑我的实体？

I'm trying to add a date value to a CakePHP entity before patching it, but it doesn't work. I had to workaround by creating an array and patching it. How can I change my code to manipulate the entity object instead of patching it with an array?

Here is the current code and the code I want to use instead:

 //current code  
    $cotacao = $this->Cotacaos->newEntity();
    $dados = $this->request->getData();
    $agora = Time::now();
    $dados['data'] = [
        'year' => $agora->year,
        'month' => $agora->month,
        'day' => $agora->day,
        'hour' => $agora->hour,
        'minute' => $agora->minute
    ];
    $cotacao = $this->Cotacaos->patchEntity($cotacao, $dados);
    if ($this->Cotacaos->save($cotacao)) {
       //etcetera


 //proposed code  
    $cotacao = $this->Cotacaos->newEntity();
    $cotacao->data = Time::now();
    $cotacao = $this->Cotacaos->patchEntity($cotacao, $this->request->getData());
    if ($this->Cotacaos->save($cotacao)) {
       //etcetera

The problem is: The date isn't being saved if I do it the second way. =(