FIRST, the good news: Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone is set to return to the Philippines following his brief gig with the Miami Heat in the NBA Summer League.
Tim Cone set for Ginebra return
The bad news: Cone will be coming back with the Gins no longer in contention for the twice-to-beat advantage in the PBA Philippine Cup.
The Gin Kings have slipped to 6-3 win-loss following their 90-73 loss to Meralco, dropping them to third place in the team standings. Even with two victories in its remaining games, Ginebra’s chances are already bleak especially with TNT currently in second place with an 8-3 win-loss record.
Ginebra has also lost to Magnolia and Meralco, teams can also end up with eight wins at the end of the elimination round.
Assistant coach Richard del Rosario said the return of Cone would be a boost for the struggling squad.
“Si Coach Tim will be back, that’s the good news. I think, Saturday morning, he will be here for the next game. At least, I’m sure his presence will give the players a huge lift,” said Del Rosario, who had a 2-2 win-loss card as he temporarily took over from Cone.
Del Rosario said Ginebra has a lot of things to work on following the two setbacks that included a defeat to TNT last Sunday. An aspect that the Kings should focus on is to how to respond to adversity.
“Obviously, there is a lot of problems to be fixed. The only way is to fix it together. I can’t pinpoint just one particular thing that we need to fix. There’s a lot of things that we need to analyze, do a lot of soul searching.
Ginebra lost another blowout game against Meralco, 90-73. The Gin Kings never led in the match that saw Arvin Tolentino missing the contest due to a shoulder injury.
“It’s not really about the loss, losing the chance of twice-to-beat, we are good naman kahit sa best-of-three. We are not looking at that, kung best-of-three or twice-to-beat. It’s just the manner that we lost in the past two games. ‘Yun ang kailangan namin i-address. We have to show more teamsmanship and togetherness especially in times of adversity and that’s what we are going to address in the next couple of games.”
Meralco assistant coach Luigi Trillo hinted that Ginebra’s subpar performance could be related to their schedule where they played three games in a week.
But Del Rosario is not making any excuses.
“Even in the playoffs, we are used to play back-to-back games. We are not going to use that as an excuse. We just didn’t show up again. We did that in two games already. But again, ‘yung lagi naming sinasabi, not too high after a win, not too low after a loss. We will take this and move on to the next game. That’s the most important thing for us, to get back on our feet and win in our next game,” said Del Rosario.
“Hopefully, we will show better character and teamsmanship at pagiging together as a team in the face of adversity in the coming games,” he added.