By REYNALD MAGALLON
Ginebra San Miguel’s LA Tenorio is on track to surpass Ronnie Magsanoc and James Yap in the all-time three point lists – something he can achieve as he is tipped to play more minutes come playoffs time.
The veteran playmaker currently sits at the fifth spot in the all-time most three points paint at 1,170 and would only need two to surpass Magsanoc who is at the fourth spot with 1,171 and nine to beat Yap who sits at third with 1,178 triples.
Legendary shooter Allan Caidic with 1, 242 triples placed second while Jimmy Alapag tops the all time list with 1,250.
Tenorio has been silent all-conference long only averaging 3.9 points, 2.6 assists and 2.1 rebounds in a limited 20-minutes of playing but already had his best game in the Kings’ 115-96 victory over Converge to wrap up the eliminations.
He was back to his old deadly self, finishing with 14 points – 10 of which came in the final frame when Ginebra pulled away for good, including the two triples that allowed him to close in on Magsanoc’s record.
“We’ve been trying to pretty much conserve LA through the whole conference. He’s a big-time playoff player and we’ve been trying to preserve his minutes, we’ve been trying to keep him down to under 25 minutes a game,” explained Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
“We’ve been able to do that because of the depth that we have on our team. But we know come playoff time, he’s gonna step up his game and we wanted to have his energy into the game so this is the right time for him to start stepping it up and play more minutes,” he added.
According to Cone, expect Tenorio’s minutes to go up come playoff time, especially that the Kings will be needing much of his poise and veteran presence inside the court.
“We rely so much on his leadership and we rely so much on his execution. He just understands the offense more than anybody else. When he’s out there we’re executing better when he is not,” Cone said of his ever reliable floor general.
Aside from Tenorio, also looking to move up to the all-time three-pointers leaderboard is San Miguel Beer’s Marico Lassiter who is currently at the eight spot with 1,085 treys, three triples away from overtaking NorthPort’s Arwind Santos who is at seventh with 1,087.
