TIM Cone was simply humble in defeat.
The Barangay Ginebra coach conceded San Miguel was just too good and too experienced for the Kings to overcome in their PBA Philippine Cup semifinals series, which the Beermen wrapped up on Friday night with a wire-to-wire 101-88 victory at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
READ: SMB withstands Ginebra comeback, seals PBA Finals rematch vs TNT
The defending champions booted out the Kings in the semis for the second straight time, 4-2, and arranged a rematch with TNT Tropang 5G for the league’s so-called crown jewel.
“They (Beermen) were obviously the better team. They made all the big shots, they made all the big stops, not just tonight, but for the whole series,” said Cone, speaking with a hoarse voice, as Ginebra’s campaign came to an end.
San Miguel leaned on the sizzling start of CJ Perez in the opening quarter to control the tempo of Game 6.
Perez exploded for 30 points coming out of the opening gate and was a perfect 12-of-12 from the field to register the all-time best quarter performance in an opening period.
The former NCAA MVP out of Lyceum eventually finished with a career-high 41 points.
The scoring explosion wasn’t lost on Cone.
“Tonight CJ came out and deflated the energy of our defense by the shots he made,”he said.
But the Ginebra coach also pointed out that they failed to make the critical stops and make the big shots even when they made quite a rally in the second half.
“Our defense didn’t go tonight, got better in the second half, but everytime there was a big moment, we made tunrovers or we couldn’t get a stop,” added Cone as the Kings tried to mount a rally from 19-points down and threatened to close the gap in the final quarter only to be stymied by some timely counter baskets from the reigning champion.
“That was just kind of the story in the whole series – we couldn’t step up big time and they did. That was the series.”
It’s San Miguel-TNT Part II in the best-of-seven finals starting Jan. 21 and Cone consoles himself of having the benefit to watch a title duel which he refers to as ‘a good series.’
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