Despite a 91-89 victory over the Magnolia Hotshots on Friday, Tim Cone believes Barangay Ginebra San Miguel still has a lot of room for improvement. One area of focus, according to the PBA’s all-time winningest coach, is making sure RJ Abarrientos and Scottie Thompson—the team’s top two guards—play better together.
“We didn’t play the perfect game tonight. We certainly have to get a lot better than what we’ve been playing. We played really, really well in stretches,” Cone admitted in the aftermath of Ginebra’s latest Manila Clasico win. “You could see us in that first and second quarter, where we were dominating. I felt that we could have done that against San Miguel [Beermen] as well, but just little mistakes here and there allowed them to stay in the game, and then they were able to steal it from us. Similar tonight, but we’ve got to clean that stuff up.”
In both games, Ginebra built double-digit leads, with a strong second quarter giving the crowd favorites a 50-35 halftime advantage over Magnolia. But in both games, Ginebra gave up the lead, with the Beermen ultimately authoring an 85-82 come-from-behind victory and the Hotshots nearly pulling off the same.
Thompson and Abarrientos Not Clicking for Ginebra Just Yet
For Cone, one thing he’d love to see is former MVP Scottie Thompson, for years Ginebra’s heart and soul, and RJ Abarrientos start clicking on all cylinders when they’re on the floor. It is something that, according to Cone, hasn’t been happening just yet.
“Right now, it’s like when RJ is on the floor by himself, he plays really well. Then Scottie is on the floor by himself, he plays really well. But what we need them to do is really figure each other out and learn to play together, and still get their stuff going despite the other guy being on the floor,” Cone pointed out.
Friday night could be a step in the right direction. Thompson fired 24 points to go along with his 10 rebounds, while Abarrientos had 19 markers. They also starred in Ginebra’s game-winning play, with the former MVP hitting last season’s Rookie of the Year with a well-placed dime off a Justin Brownlee pick for the go-ahead deuce.
Cone believes his two talented guards will figure things out eventually as they play together more, both in practice and in games.
“I think there’s a little bit of confusion because they’re both point guards and such, but I think that can improve as we go forward, and I think that’ll come,” Cone said. “They haven’t had a lot of time playing together until this conference, and we’re trying to get them to do that. So we’ve got to spend more time doing it in practice and getting them into a rhythm in practice so they can learn how to play off each other a little bit more.”
In stretches against Magnolia, Abarrientos and Thompson did show they can play off each other. Cone and the barangay can only hope that it’s a start.
