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After 30 previous appearances in a title series, Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone is not one to get carried away despite an impressive conquest of the enemy on Friday night.
“You take everything with a grain of salt,” Cone said after a 102-87 ripping of Meralco in Lucena at the start of the best-of-seven series for the PBA Governors’ Cup. “This is not representative of anything as the series goes on.”
The Gin Kings dominated the Bolts all the way, pummeling Meralco defensively and forcing the tournament’s best three-point shooting team to struggle from that distance all night.
But Cone believes that they caught the Bolts in their off night, and, talking from experience, would want his charges to be on their guard in Game 2 on Sunday at 7 p.m. at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
“We just got them on a night where they were a bit rusty,” the two-time Grand Slam champion said.
“The key for us right now is to stay sharp and fresh,” he added. “They are going to have a lot of emotion [coming from a Game 1 loss] and we need to match that emotion.”
Ginebra led practically from the start, opening up a 17-point lead in the second quarter and never looking back with Justin Brownlee churning out superior all-around numbers while getting the local support Allen Durham couldn’t muster from his Meralco back ups.
The Bolts made just three triples in the first half and finished with an 8-for-34 clip, and this is something which coach Norman Black said needs to be addressed for his Bolts to stand a chance against the hulking Kings.
“We shot poorly from the perimeter,” Black said. “We also took too many [three-pointers]. We average just around 21 [per game] but took about 35.”
Black feels it was more than just Ginebra’s choking defense that did the Bolts in.
“We give them credit for their defense,” Black said. “But at the same time, it was also bad execution on our part.”