Barangay Ginebra San Miguel coach Tim Cone was blunt in his assessment of the team’s Game 2 loss to the San Miguel Beermen in their PBA Philippine Cup semis series. According to him, there were no positives to take from it.
“It’s just not a good performance out of us. Uncharacteristic of how we’ve been playing the last couple of months,” said Cone, who saw his team surrender 60 second-half points to the Beermen after holding them to just 34 in the first half.
Notably, 13 of those 60 points came from someone who rarely ever sees meaningful minutes: Jeron Teng. The former La Salle Green Archer came off the bench to spark the Beermen, tallying 12 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter alone and bringing energy and intensity on both ends as he also took on the challenge of shadowing RJ Abarrientos and Scottie Thompson.
Ginebra Couldn’t Contain San Miguel Basketball
After swarming the Beermen in the first half of Game 1, Ginebra just couldn’t seem to find an answer to San Miguel’s second-half uprising as Leo Austria’s wards played their brand of basketball and “beat up” Ginebra, according to Cone.
“They beat us up in the second half. They played San Miguel basketball,” Cone added. “June Mar [Fajardo] dominated in the second half, and they hit shots, and they got the running game going. We didn’t defend well the whole second half.”
Indeed, San Miguel got going in the second half, with Marcio Lassiter, in particular, hitting three triples in the third quarter to help start the fire for the Beermen. From there, Fajardo and Teng took over to wrest control of Game 2.
Cone, Ginebra to Regroup for Game 3
Now, it’s back to the drawing board for the crowd darlings as they try to figure out—in just a single day, no less—how to keep the Beermen from playing San Miguel basketball.
“We’ll compete with them on the third night. It’s a seven-game series,” vowed Cone. “We have to regroup and see if we can regroup quickly and be back and get this thing going in Game 3.”
Game 3 is later tonight at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, with tipoff at 7:30 p.m.
