IT’S a PBA finals for Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone that will certainly be a whole lot different from those he played for in the past.
The absence of veteran team captain LA Tenorio makes this title series of the Kings against the TNT Tropang Giga for the Governors’ Cup championship surreal for the 65-year-old coach.
See Barangay Ginebra, TNT start Governors' Cup finals after lengthy break
Since coming on board the Ginebra organization, Cone won all of his seven championships with Tenorio as his chief playmaker.
With the 38-year-old Tenorio undergoing treatment for his health condition, the champion coach won’t be having the player who stabilizes things for the Kings whenever the going gets tough.
“There’s no one quite like ‘Playoff LA,” Cone said of the point guard out of Ateneo, who’s always been known of notching his game a lot higher come the playoffs.
“LA is one of those special guys. He’s been special for me way back with Alaska, and even here (at Ginebra).”
With Tenorio not suiting up for the best-of-seven title series, it could be a factor the Tropang Giga could exploit to their advantage as Cone acknowledges how the entire Ginebra team respects and listen once its team captain says his piece.
“When LA speaks, everyone listens. When he comes up to you in the middle of a game and says (something) because he sees the game really well, he’s 38 years old and he’s been around in all of these situations, when he sees and talks to Scottie (Thompson), Stanley (Pringle) or even Justin (Brownlee), they listen,” said the Ginebra coach.
“He mentored every player in our team.”
Adjusting with Tenorio’s absence was not as easy for Cone, too.
Since missing his first ever PBA game last March 1 to end a league record of 744 consecutive games played, Cone said he still hasn’t gotten used to not having Tenorio around.
“I turn to the bench all the time, look down the bench, and mathematically I will put LA into the game. Or when I put my starting lineup before the game on the white board, I inevitably start to put LA down, and then I forget, then I erase, and put Scottie instead,” Cone shared.
“So he’s constantly with us, he’s constantly in our minds.”
How that mindset plays out for Cone and the Kings in the title series that begins on Easter Sunday remains to be seen.
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