BARANGAY Ginebra coach Tim Cone is moving on from a crushing defeat on Sunday to Magnolia, but it's one that will linger for a while, even after an admission by the PBA that there should've been a foul called late in that game.
Although it would no longer alter the result, Cone credited the PBA for its desire to improve on officiating after a review by the league saw that a foul should have been called on Magnolia’s Mark Barroca when he challenged the lay-up of Scottie Thompson in the dying seconds of Ginebra’s 93-91 defeat against Magnolia.
READ PBA suspends referees crew for failing to call Barroca foul on Scottie
Ginebra lost after squandering a 26-point lead in the second quarter.
“I’m a former Alaska guy. That’s spilled milk,” said Cone, when asked to comment on the PBA decision to suspend the entire referee crew after the PBA Press Corps Awards on Monday night.
“There’s nothing we can’t do about that. I don’t want a referee in trouble or whatever. It’s unfortunate that it wasn’t called. But I’m glad the PBA made a stand, and reviewing, that’s what you’re gonna do, review the video and see what happens. And just like we improve as a team, the PBA tries to improve as an organization.
“If that’s really the case, because I looked at the video but I haven’t really studied that. My wife was the one that told me it was a foul so I trust my wife. Just again, it’s good for the PBA to try to improve,” said Cone.
Cone said that won’t change the fact that it was a still very tough defeat that saw the Kings blow a 51-25 gap in the second period.
“I was furious at myself. I was furious, the way we gave up that second-half lead. I was furious at that call. It all kinda boiled over. We had a little bit of a dust-up in the locker room after the game. It was a difficult game to swallow,” said Cone.
“I think the last time I lost a 25-plus point lead that I can remember was I think 2002 or something like that with Ryan Gregorio. He came back and beat me after a 28-point lead I think we had.
"I remember my second year with Alaska, we had a 32-point lead in the first quarter and we ended up losing that game. You remember those games and this one’s going to be one that I would remember for a long time.”
“But also, we are going to move forward from it,” Cone said.
Cone said the conference is still very early, and the team is capable of bouncing back from that tough defeat.
“I felt in the first half, we showed how good we can be as a team. We really played to our absolute potential. And then in the second half, we showed how bad we can be as a team. I don’t think we are that good in the first half. We weren’t that bad in the second half or somewhere in between.
"We’ll figure that out as we move forward. That’s what we are going to do. We have to move forward from it. It’s early in the season. We are not going to feel too bad about it. Just move on, learn things from it. We played out of character in that second half. We have to get back into character,” said Cone.
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