Tim Cone. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Barangay Ginebra’s character was tested on Sunday when a motivated Meralco crew threw everything it had to equalize the series on Sunday.
“It was a struggle. [Meralco is] mentally very tough and they’re hard to crack. But I’m just truly happy with our guys, just hanging in there, battling and finding a way,” said Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
“We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well tonight, but we played the game in other areas and made it up there,” said coach Tim Cone.
The Gin Kings anticipated a huge fightback from the Bolts as they saw themselves down early, 8-17 to start the game. But they put themselves within striking distance as they waited for the right time to strike.
With Meralco holding a 75-69 edge in the final 5:56, that was when Ginebra made its rally, with Japeth Aguilar’s thunderous dunk igniting what would be a deciding 17-1 finishing kick as the Kings came away with the 86-76 Game 2 win.
“We took a big punch from them early in the game. We kind of survived that and we were able to kind of make it into a possession-by-possession game. No one really got up in front, then we had a real good closing kick,” Cone said.
“Our energy went up in the last three minutes of the game when we tied the basketball game and we just kind of fed off that energy the rest of the way, emotionally. Seeing that the opportunity was there for us to win that game.”
The triumph gave the Gin Kings to a 2-0 series lead in the 2017 PBA Governors’ Cup Finals, two wins away from retaining their title in the season-ending conference.
It was an uplifting win given the situation both teams had to go through stemming from Game 1 in Lucena, but Cone knows the Gin Kings have their work cut out for them with a desperate Meralco side fighting for its life on Wednesday.
“I think they have a lot of punches left to throw us. This is a real trying game because of the out-of-town experience that we had 48 hours ago. We didn’t get back to Manila until 3 o’ clock in the morning and guys weren’t asleep until 3:30 or 4 a.m,” Cone said.
“So it was a real trying weekend for us and for them as well. It just looked like at the end, we just had a little more than they did. Now they got two days to refresh, and I think that extra day in a series is really valuable to the teams,” he added. “They’re gonna come out with full punches in Game 3.“