Kings’ beating from Hotshots could turn out to be a blessing

Nothing changed for Barangay Ginebra even after a 118-88 blowout at the hands of sister team Magnolia in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup on Sunday. King Gin is still the defending champion here and is the dominant one. squad in the end-of-season tournament—they won four of the last five editions of the Governor’s Cup. And more importantly, for this edition, it was only Ginebra’s first loss in four games.

But all that could not persuade Tim Cone from seeing the loss for what it was.

“It was just a really embarrassing night,” he said on the heels of the fancied duel at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

“Tonight is really our first [championship] hangover night I mean, we just don’t have it. I tried hard, we tried hard to get it at half time. [The players] came out with a little fire to start running, but we couldn’t hold back.

Save for the first six minutes of the contest, Ginebra barely found a way to match their opponent’s spirit. He also lost in almost every statistical contest of the game, except for points and second blocks.

The Gin Kings also trailed by 31 points in the game.

“I hate to admit this, but we were a really tired team tonight, and you could see it in our body language [and] our lack of activity. We just don’t get up and down the floor, we don’t move without the ball. The ball was slow tonight, and we were late in the whole rotation,” Cone said of the loss that dropped the club to fifth place.

“It was a perfect storm: We were tired, and we played a team that was desperate and had found life with new imports, and just came out and they out-physicaled us and out-energized us,” he added, while ruing. The crew has a packed schedule since winning the Commissioner’s Cup.

Star loan

Ginebra is one of the three pro teams assembled to lend their stars to the National Team that will finish their Fiba World Cup Asia Qualifying campaign on February 24 and 27 at the Philippine Arena in Bulacan.

Among the standouts is Justin Brownlee, who was held to only 22 points-also the most by any Gin King night.

“I just want to give Magnolia a lot of credit. They played a great game. I don’t want to take anything away from the win. They deserved it, they played hard, and they had a good game plan,” said Brownlee, a naturalized Filipino.

The silver lining

“For us, of course, we will be champions. We have had a lot of success and started 3-0. [But] this loss, you know, can be positive,” he said. “I hope we can gather from this loss, learn a lot and move forward. Know that we go out and play mediocre [basketball] and lack of mental focus, this can also happen not only against Magnolia but against many teams.

Cone also saw a silver lining on the stand.

“It’s good to have a Christian [Standhardinger] came back last night, and he played full minutes so that was very encouraging. LA [Tenorio] played a bit more minutes last night, too. So, let’s hope we get better while we wait for Japeth [Aguilar] to come back,” said the Grand Slam coach.

The Gin Kings should take most of their positives, what with the killer stretch ahead. Still on tap for many darlings are San Miguel Beer, Meralco, Converge, and TNT-which have combined for 15 wins against only three losses to create a three-way tie at the top.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re ready to play everything,” Brownlee said. INQ

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