By REYNALD MAGALLON
Barangay Ginebra head coach Tim Cone believed that it was his team’s cold shooting in the end game that cost them the Game 6 and not the return of Myles Powell.
The multi-titled mentor even felt that the Kings did a pretty good job on putting a body on Powell even if it was the first time they faced the prolific point guard.
“We never experienced him before. We didn’t play him in elims so it’s the first time we play him tonight. In my mind, we get a good job defensively. We held him down with what we wanted,” said Cone in the aftermath of the Ginebra’ 87-84 loss to Bay Area which managed to drag the game to a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday at the Philippine Arena.
Shadowed for the most part of the contest by defensive linchpins in Nardz Pinto and Scottie Thompson, Powell finished with 29 points although he had to bleed for it by nailing tough shots one after another.
While Powell got his usual numbers, Ginebra was able to limit his overall impact to the team’s offense evident when the Kings managed to hold the Dragons – usually a more potent offensive team with Powell in tow than Andrew Nicholson – to just 85 points.
“Did we look like we had a hard time? I have to look at the video to see but we only gave up 85 points and I think they average 115 when Powell is playing so we did what we wanted defensively,” said Cone.
Ginebra, however, couldn’t fully capitalize on its defensive stand as they failed to convert when it mattered most.
Christian Standhardinger fueled a huge fourth quarter assault from the Kings who took a 73-66 lead early in the payoff period after trailing by as many as 12 points in the first half.. The Kings offense however went from hot to cold as they couldn’t buy a basket late – with Justin Brownlee and Stanley Pringle missing wide open treys – to douse a searing 7-0 rally from the Dragons.
Ginebra also had the chance to send the game to an extra period but Japeth Aguilar also came up short on his well-challenged triple at the buzzer.
“We just didn’t knock down shots on the offensive side,” Cone lamented
“They had a great shooting night from the three point line, almost 50 percent and we shot 20 percent and that was the difference in the game,” he added.
Now with more time to prepare after the Game 7 was moved to Sunday, instead of its original schedule on Friday, Cone vowed to improve their defensive sets to contain Powell and the rest of the Dragons.
“We were gonna look at it and think about it. We have time now, we only had 45 minutes to set up a game plan for him in our last practice. Hopefully we’ll have a little more time and we think (about) what we are doing with them.”
