ANTIPOLO City – Tim Cone acknowledged TNT successfully took away Barangay Ginebra’s strengths, leading to a 104-88 romp by the Tropang Giga in Game One of the PBA Governors’ Cup Finals.
As the top three point shooting team in the conference, the Kings were held by the Tropang Giga to a miserable 9.5 percent from beyond the arc, a horrible shooting spree which the Ginebra coach pointed out led to their downfall.
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“They took a lot of what we wanted to do away from us. We shot the ball poorly with 2-for-21 from the three-point line,” said Cone following the 16-point blowout before a record crowd of 11,020 at the Ynares Center.
“So it’s just one of those games. You hate to see how it happened in the first game of a championship series.”
From the group stage all the way to the semifinals, the Kings topped the three-point shooting department with a 37.2 percent clip.
But on Sunday night, only Scottie Thompson and rookie RJ Abarrientos accounted for the two 3-point baskets converted by the Kings. Incidentally, the duo were a combined 2-of-10 from the same area.
Import Justine Brownlee was 0-of-2 from three-point distance, while Maverick Ahanmisi and Stephen Holt were both 0-of-3.
Cone added the Tropang Giga were obviously locked in better than the Kings in Game 1.
“They were more locked in than we were. Weren’t just locked in as much as we would like to be,” said the 66-year-old champion coach.
The Kings’ poor shooting at the start allowed the Tropang Giga to dictate the tempo of the game, which they led by as many as 89-69.
“They beat us up individually one-on-one and really embarrassed our defense,” Cone said.
But typical of Ginebra’s never-say-die, Cone is leaving Game 1 behind and looks forward to the adjustments the team can make in the next game on Wednesday.
“We have to turn around and move on. See what we can do to change our fortunes in Game 2,” said the Ginebra mentor. “We’ll see what we can do about it.
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