By REYNALD MAGALLON
Scottie Thompson returned and Barangay Ginebra snapped its two-game slide.
While the big 105-86 win over the free falling Blackwater cannot be solely attributed to the comeback of the one-time Most Valuable Player, it cannot be denied how the Kings have played better when he is on the court.
“Scottie is a former MVP so he’s going to make an impact on the team he has through the years,” said Ginebra head coach Tim Cone.
“Scottie, he helped us move the ball. He brings us a lot of energy to the defensive side,” he added.
While Cone felt like it was more of a team win and his wards collectively wanting to end their slump, Thompson had impacted the game so much that even Christian Standhardinger, who led the way with conference-high of 33 points, talked about how his star guard’s return enabled him to get his rhythm offensively.
“Obviously it helped that Scottie is coming back. Me and Scottie have a good two-man game that helped me to get going and I think Scottie and the team did a good job bouncing back,” said Standhardinger.
Thompson was obviously getting his rhythm back from a long layoff with only four points to show but he contributed in other areas after collecting seven rebounds and dishing out eight assists.
Ginebra, as a team, seemed to move the ball a lot better when it was Thompson who was running the point, evident to their 33 assists in the win against Blackwater as compared to their average of 22.3 assists in the losses to Terrafirma and San Miguel when they sorely missed his services.
Still, Cone is taking a cautious approach in handling Thompson’s back injury, only fielding him for 26 minutes.
“I was caught in trying to keep him on the floor and get his rhythm, get him back into the flow of the game but also I didn’t want to overextend and play him and not be ready to play on Sunday,” said Cone.
“It’s kind of a balancing act with him at this point.”
