By REYNALD MAGALLOM
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson suffered so much pain from coach Tim Cone and Justin Brownlee when Gilas Pilipinas defeated Jordan during the gold medal match of the Hangzhou Asian Games in China last year.
A year since then, the NBA veteran, now TNT import, has the chance to exorcise the Asian Games ghost as he aims to push them on the verge of suffering the same fate.
The Tropang Giga try to take a commanding 3-0 lead against the Barangay Ginebra Kings in Game 3 of the PBA Season 49 Governors’ Cup Finals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Friday, All Saints Day, Nov. 1.
Tip-off of the match is at 7:30 p.m. with another huge crowd expected to troop the venue.
Hollis-Jefferson, once only dared by Cone and Brownlee to beat them from the deep, proved to be the biggest thorn to the side of Ginebra, drilling six triples on his way to 37 points. He added 13 rebounds and seven assists and delivered the killing blows in a no relief effort.
“It was basically a shift in the mindset because in the Asian Games, they forced me to shoot a lot of threes, and they beat us for the gold medal,” said Hollis-Jefferson who played for Jordan as a naturalized player during the continental meet.
“I knew that was going to be the game plan. They were willing to live with that the whole game. I guess they thought that it was a fluke or it might happen. But I’m a professional player. I work on it everyday. I believe in it. My teammates, coaches, they believe me. They told me to shoot,” he added.
But it was not a one-man show alone for TNT as guys like Jayson Castro, Calvin Oftana, Rey Nambatac, RR Pogoy and Glenn Khobuntin all proved to be the perfect complement to Hollis-Jefferson’s aggressive play.
With TNT firing on all cylinders through the first two games, Cone was baffled at what else his team could do to put a stop to Tropang Giga’s dominance from both ends of the floor.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I’m totally being outcoached and outclassed by Chot,” said Cone.
“I feel bad for our players because I’m not helping them at all. We’ll figure out, figure out what’s going on, but right now I’m just being totally outcoached,” he added.
Ginebra hasn’t been its usual self in the first two games of the series and that’s largely behind their poor three-point shooting – one of its potent weapons that brought them to finals.
For one, the Kings also need to find ways to give the ball to Brownlee and give him enough space to operate after being hampered by TNT’s league-best defense.
