Barangay Ginebra San Miguel coach Tim Cone urged his team to keep moving forward as they continue to rediscover the form that won them the PBA Governors’ Cup title last October.
Inconsistency has marred Ginebra’s campaign in the ongoing PBA Philippine Cup that saw the crowd-favorite squad split its first eight games, including Saturday’s 83-72 victory over Meralco at the University of San Agustin gym in Iloilo City.
At presstime, Ginebra is tied for the sixth to eighth places with Blackwater, which was playing Alaska last night, and Phoenix.
Ginebra has three games left to play in the elims – against Blackwater on Friday at the Cuneta Astrodome, Phoenix next Sunday and NLEX on Jan. 29 at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.
“We’re trying to climb back into contention,” Cone said in a video posted by the PBA’s official Facebook page after the game. “The thing I liked about this game is our team really battled and battled, and we have our bad moments and we kept battling through, keeping our heads, keep pushing.
“When bad things happen, we tend to sink,” he added. “We have high expectations for ourselves, especially coming off a championship. When we have high expectations and we don’t meet them, you get a little frustration, a little upset.
“For us, we have to keep moving forward, keep moving forward, put that behind us. If we have a mistake, keep playing forward.”
Ginebra beat Meralco in their first meeting the former’s 4-2 victory in the Governors’ Cup finals behind a second half takeover by Joe Devance, who had 14 of his 19 points in that period that allowed the team to pull away from a seesaw first half.
