By JONAS TERRADO
Coach Tim Cone lauded the collective effort of Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in beating NLEX in Game 2 of the PBA Governors’ Cup semifinals despite the absence of Japeth Aguilar.
Ginebra gained a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series with a 104-94 victory Friday, March 25 and moved a win shy of advancing to its third finals appearance in the last four conferences.
That came despite Aguilar in street clothes after injuring his calf in Game 1 two days earlier.
“We talked about the fact that nobody’s gonna be able to replace Japeth by themselves. It’s going to take a collective effort,” Cone said during a customary postgame interview.
Five players scored in double figures led by import Justin Brownlee and do-it-all Scottie Thompson, but Cone was glad that John Pinto once again stepped up and veteran Joe Devance provided intangibles during his brief appearance.
All of Pinto’s 10 points came in the second quarter which helped launch Ginebra’s rally from being down 11 twice while Devance was tasked to help out in defending NLEX import Cam Clark while scoring seven points.
“We got a really good performance from Joe Devance. Again, he’s a veteran, he knows the game. No one follows game plans better than Joe, he’s done that throughout his whole career.
“You know he’s gonna go out and follow the game plan. He’ll understand it, he’ll be able to execute it at a high level because he has such a great focus. So yeah, good performance from him.
“I think Nards Pinto was key in the game. We were falling behind and he kept us in the game with tremendous play in the second quarter, gave us a chance to play hard in that third quarter and get ahead.
“If we haven’t done that, we might have fallen too far behind and never got back in the game, so hats off to Nards, he came off the bench and did a great job,” added Cone.
Christian Standhardinger frustrated Clark, who was held to 15 points before fouling out midway in the fourth, while LA Tenorio continued his steady backcourt play for Ginebra in the playoffs.
Things continue to look bright for Ginebra, which has now won five in a row and seven of the last eight dating back to the eliminations. But Cone cautioned that the series is far from over.
“The job is not done, to my mind it’s still very far away,” he said. “We just got to see if we could come back and put another performance on Sunday.”
