Game 1 of PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals between Barangay Ginebra San Miguel and the NorthPort Batang Pier was a laugher, with the crowd darlings putting on a show of force in beating their younger counterparts, 115-93.
It was a masterclass for the former Commissioners’ Cup champs as they shot 54% overall and made 15 of their 29 three-point attempts for a white-hot 51.7% clip from downtown. All the while, Ginebra clamped down on the Batang Pier, holding down their two top scorers—Arvin Tolentino and Joshua Munzon—to just 18 combined points, or 33 points less than the 51 points they average.
Despite Ginebra’s impressive victory, Tim Cone isn’t looking to much into it, describing it as a case of one team—Ginebra—getting hot and the other team—NorthPort—going cold.
“It’s only one game. We’ll see how this thing evolves over seven games. We didn’t win anything here. We won big and we just had a really good shooting night they had an off night,” Cone maintained in the press conference after Game 1. “Those things have a tendency to turn around, so we’re just gonna put this one away and try to focus on Game 2….”
Cone Still Wary of NorthPort and Counterpart Bonnie Tan
The PBA’s winningest coach added that the Batang Pier just had a “a bit of a letdown,” possibly due to the long two-week break that preceded the start of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup semis. And that’s why he fully expects NorthPort to be better moving forward.
“They’re a team that’s played well all conference and they had two weeks off, so it can be hard to stay sharp over the two weeks. But they’ll get their game together and they’re gonna come back. They’re not the one seed by chance. They earned it and they deserved it…,” Cone said. “They just had a little bit of a letdown tonight. But Coach Bonnie Tan has just been tremendous with this team in terms of getting guys to play their role, playing to people’s strengths.”
Tan no doubt will look to get his gunslingers—Tolentino and Munzon—better looks and have them in a better rhythm to help out import Kadeem Jack. Cone and Ginebra will try to prevent that from happening with even better, more intense defense.
“Just tonight we defended well and hopefully we can keep that that energy going on the defensive side,” Cone said as he looks to prepare his team for a Batang Pier fight back.
