WHILE wild cheers and a shouts echoed inside the Barangay Ginebra dugout, the same can’t be said on the same room opposite to it.
An eerie silence prevailed inside the Converge locker room just moments after the FiberXers lost what appeared to be a won game, 99-98, in overtime against the Kings in their do-or-die encounter for a berth in the Philippine Cup semifinals.
READ Holt trey at the buzzer aids Ginebra's great escape vs Converge
Rookie star Juan Gomez De Liano tried to hold back tears, while the rest of the FiberXers had their heads bowed as they quietly cope with the playoff heartbreak before going out of the already empty Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“Tahimik (lahat), pero heads up sabi ko,” said coach Delta Pineda after the game that lasted almost three hours.
“Yung binigay nating laban, iba yun,” he added. “Talagang collapse lang doon sa winning shot.”
With Ginebra trailing by a single point in the final eight seconds, RJ Abarrientos passed the ball to Stephen Holt, who faked off Archie Concepcion before draining the shot that hit nothing but net at the buzzer to clinch the dramatic win.
As pandemonium erupted in the pro-Ginebra crowd at the Big Dome, the FiberXers were left stunned at the sudden turn of events as they failed to clinch what would have been their first-ever semifinals appearance in franchise history.
“Of course, medyo down especially it came towards the New Year,” said De Liano, who paced Converge with 25 points including 18 in the fourth and overtime periods.
Pineda tried to look at the positive takeaways out of the quarterfinals series that saw Converge enjoying its first ever twice-to-beat bonus in the playoffs.
“We fought a champion team, a great team, a more experienced team,” he said. “Ayaw ninyo pa ba yung showing namin? We did our best, talaga sigurong it’s just not for us.”
De Liano, the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft, said the team can only move on from the unfortunate incident.
“It’s a good experience so we’ve got to take the lessons learned, and it’s on to the next conference,” he said. “We should get better from this.”
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