PBA: Weary Ginebra ‘just didn’t have it’ in blowout loss to Magnolia, says Tim Cone

MANILA, Philippines – Nothing changed for Barangay Ginebra even after a 118-88 blowout at the hands of sister team Magnolia on Sunday.

The Gin Kings are still the defending champions of the Governor’s Cup—winners of four of the last five editions of the tournament. And most importantly, they still have three wins against just one loss.

But Tim Cone wasn’t going to let all the trivia and coaching pride get in the way of making the loss another one.

“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 was really the first night (of the championship). I mean, we just didn’t have it. I tried hard, we tried hard to get it at halftime. (The players) came out with fire to start the run, but we couldn’t hold it.

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 in the standings.

“It’s a perfect storm: We are tired, and we play a team that is desperate and has found life with new imports, and just come out and they out-physicaled us and out-energized us,” he continued when ruing. The crew has a packed schedule since winning the Commissioner’s Cup.

It can be recalled that Ginebra is one of the three pro teams gathered to loan stars to the national team that will complete the Fiba World Cup Asian 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,” he said.

“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.

Like Brownlee, Cone also saw a silver lining in the stand.

“It was great to have Christian (Standhardinger) back last night, and he played some minutes so that’s encouraging. LA (Tenorio) also played some minutes last night. So hopefully we’ll be healthy a little while we wait for Japeth (Aguilar) to come back ,” he said.

Ginebra’s resident import also stated that Magnolia’s loss should be a wake-up call for Ginebra as the belt is for the heavyweights in the league.

Still on tap for many darlings are San Miguel Beer, Meralco, Converge, and TNT-all of which are now in the top half of the competition.

“I hope we can gather from this loss, learn a lot and move forward. Know that we go out and play mediocre [basketball] and not mentally focused, this can also happen not only against Magnolia but many teams,” said Brownlee.

“We have to make sure we are ready to play everything,” he added.

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