BARANGAY Ginebra missed the services of veteran Japeth Aguilar in its PBA Commissioner's Cup game against Converge due to a knee injury.
The 39-year-old Aguilar was in uniform but didn't play, watching the action on the Ginebra bench as the Kings fashioned out a 99-93 win over Converge on Sunday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
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Coach Tim Cone said it wasn't worth the risk to have Aguilar play against the FiberXers at this early stage of the eliminations, even if the Kings were severely challenged in the frontline by the stacked FiberXers.
"If this has been a playoff game like in a best-of-seven and we really needed to win, I think he might be able to play at least a little bit," said the Ginebra coach.
"But it wasn't worth the risk early in the conference."
Aguilar hurt the knee during the final seven minutes of Ginebra's 118-113 loss to NLEX the previous game. The Ginebra big man asked to be substituted following his awkward landing and never returned to the game.
Good thing, the MRI test came out negative, according to Cone.
"There's no structural problem," said Cone. "There is some residual swelling. He still has pain, though the trainers described it at a level of 4 out of 10. So we thought we better hold him out."
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