TURNOVERS and another bad shooting night has Barangay Ginebra on the verge of elimination in the PBA Philippine Cup semifinals Friday night.
Coach Tim Cone mentioned the two as major factors that did the Gin Kings in against San Miguel in Game 5 of the series which they lost, 103-92, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
READ: SMB sends Ginebra to the brink of elimination with Game 5 win
They now have lost two in a row and trail the top-seeded Beermen, 3-2, as their season has been left hanging in the balance.
Cone said 18 Ginebra miscues compared to 12 by San Miguel hurt the Gin Kings’ cause, resulting in a 24-15 edge on turnover points in favor of the Beermen.
“We made a couple - three or four even - of crucial errors at the wrong time that led them stretch it out down the stretch. It wasted a good performance by us,” he said.
Ginebra turned the ball over five times in the final period, including one each by Japeth Aguilar and Maverick Ahanmisi inside the final three minutes which SMB capitalized on.
“We really made some bad mistakes,” said Cone.
SMB runs away from Ginebra in final frame
Compounding the Gin Kings' woes was their 37-percent shooting from the floor (30-of-81).
They converted just 7-of-23 in the fourth quarter for 30-percent.
In contrast, San Miguel went 63-percent from the field in the final frame on the way to a total of 50.6-percent shooting.
“Still haven’t had a good shooting night this whole series. We have not shot well,” admitted Cone.
But all is not lost for the never-say-die team as Cone hopes Ginebra bounces back with what he termed as a ‘big performance’ on Sunday.
As he put it, “The old cliché is, it takes four to win, it doesn’t take three,” he stressed. “It’s not a five-game series, it’s a seven-game series.”
For that to happen, Cone views the first step to be for the Gin Kings to finally be able to shoot well from the field.
“Hoping that would come around at some point. Maybe on Sunday. So let’s see,” he said.
Ginebra is actually just shooting 41-percent after five games in the series, as per the latest numbers released by the league through resident statistician Fidel Mangonon III.
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