BARANGAY Ginebra coach Tim Cone paid tribute to his Meralco counterpart Norman Black as well as the Bolts for a well-played PBA Philippine Cup semifinal series that went down to the final possession.
The Kings dealt the Bolts another heartbreak in the fifth and final game of the series when Scottie Thompson’s three-pointer with 0.6 seconds left gave them an 83-80 win and a trip to the finals against TNT.
Cone said Ginebra had to earn everything because of how brilliant Meralco played and how well Black coached in the series.
“From the bottom of my heart, it was a tremendously-coached series. His adjustments were tremendous. We couldn’t get our personnel on track. Meralco is just a great team. They are a great team,” said Cone.
Cone said it was unfortunate that one of them had to lose and it came down to the breaks of the match.
Cone told reporters during the postgame interview that Ginebra was lucky to come out of the series as the winner and that Game Five wasn’t a well-coached game from his side of things.
“We’ve been fortunate to beat the Meralco team. Again, I just feel like they are just a really, really good team. I can’t give them a better compliment than that,” said Cone.
Cone said the semifinal series showed how important the Philippine Cup is for both teams, admitting he felt that Meralco wanted it more than his team.
“This is for the all-Filipino so that makes it very, very important. We are all going for that all-Filipino. That’s the crown jewel. That’s what everybody wants. I realize that it’s the semifinals and not the finals and not the championship. But without this, we don’t have a chance to go on. This is really very, very crucial.”
“Both teams really, really want this. I think in all honesty, they wanted it a little more than we did. They played with a little bit more urgency than we did and yet we were able to sneak in and steal a series,” Cone said.
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