BARANGAY Ginebra has faced Meralco many times during the PBA playoffs in the past, but head coach Tim Cone said the current iteration of the Bolts that they're facing in their Philippine Cup semifinal series is a different one.
Cone said Meralco has a completely different system than the previous teams they played including during their four previous finals clashes in the Governors’ Cup.
Nenad factor
Cone said it is the imprint made by Nenad Vucivic, who was installed as Meralco’s active consultant starting last year following the appointment of Luigi Trillo as head coach.
“This is a familiar team but they have a different system with coach Nenad. Their system is a lot different. And we struggled with it at times,” said Cone of the system being run by the Serbian-New Zealander mentor who briefly handled Gilas Pilipinas in 2022.
That could probably be the reason why Barangay Ginebra was defeated by Meralco in their elimination round match last March 15 in runaway fashion, 91-73.
“It gets a lot of movement, their guards are quick to the rim,” said Cone on the general description of Meralco’s system. “We had a hard time defending them in stretches.”
Barangay Ginebra grabbed the semifinals series opener on Friday, 92-88, but Cone is expecting a long series against the Bolts. Over the course of the series, Cone hopes that his team will get more accustomed to how Meralco plays.
“Hopefully, we can get better and better as the series goes along. But it’s a different one. You don’t see that type of system to match. We are still trying to figure it out,” said Cone.
Bolts still a defensive team
While they are playing a different system, the Bolts continued to be the tough defensive team they've been known for over the years. It showed in their defense against Christian Standhardinger where Meralco’s bigs of Raymond Almazan, Norbert Torres, and rookie Brandon Bates took turns in guarding the big man.
“This is what we are going to see throughout the series. They rotated three guys on him and just tried to wear him down, put a body on him, try to be physical with him. Almazan, Torres, and Bates, Bates especially.
"They kept rotating those three guys, that’s tough. We talked about it as a group. This is going to happen. They are going to try to wear (Christian) down. Other people have to pick up,” said Cone.
Standhardinger had 14 points and seven rebounds in Game One, lower than his averages of 26.5 points and 13 rebounds during the past five games prior to Game One.
But Cone was glad that other players stepped up including Stanley Pringle, who topscored for Ginebra with 22 points on Friday.
“If you focus so much on Chris, maybe Japeth (Aguilar) will get some stuff, Scottie [Thompson] other things. I thought Mav [Maverick Ahanmisi] played a really game, Ralph [Cu], Stanley. You can never expect a player to come up and match his numbers every night. Once he does that, teams are going to take it away. And now, you have to find alternatives,” said Cone.
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