Tim Cone was his usual blunt self in his assessment of what went wrong in Barangay Ginebra San Miguel’s wire-to-wire opening-night loss to the Magnolia Hotshots to start PBA Season 50. For the league’s winningest coach, Ginebra lost because nobody played well—especially the starters.
Starters Starting Out Flat
Ginebra’s starters against Magnolia were Scottie Thompson, Stephen Holt, Jeremiah Gray, Troy Rosario, and Japeth Aguilar, and they got ambushed real quick by a 10-0 Magnolia start and a bigger 17-3 tear that set the tone for opening night. The same five started the second and allowed the Hotshots to turn a 36-30 halftime lead into a double-digit advantage early in the third.
To be fair, Holt posted a 16-point, 17-rebound double-double, Gray poured in 13 markers, and Rosario added 12. But with Aguilar held to just 5 points and Thompson going scoreless on 0-of-5 shooting with only 5 rebounds, it was clear Ginebra’s starters were outclassed by Magnolia’s—Jerom Lastimosa, Javi Gomez de Liaño, Rome dela Rosa, Zavier Lucero, and James Laput. No wonder Cone ripped his starters’ uninspired play against Magnolia and mentioned Thompson by name in doing so.
“I didn’t see anybody play well. Our first group has to pick it up. We can’t get off to a bad start like we did. It all starts with our first group, Scottie and the rest. We can’t afford to play like that together,” Cone noted in an interview with PBA scribes.
Indeed, Cone is spot on. Ginebra’s starting five can most certainly play better than they did against Magnolia on Sunday, and they will need to “pick it up,” as Cone pointed out, as the crowd darlings are about to enter a gauntlet.
Tough Schedule Awaits Ginebra
If Thompson and company don’t pick things up right away, Ginebra could be staring at an 0-5 hole real quick, as their next four games are acid tests, to say the least:
- TNT Tropang 5G on October 15
- Meralco Bolts on October 17
- San Miguel Beermen on October 26
- NLEX Road Warriors on November 2
TNT, Meralco, and San Miguel are among the PBA’s elites and are certified championship contenders. NLEX, meanwhile, is an emerging squad that could beat even the best teams on a good night. It’s probably why Cone’s message seems filled with urgency.
“We’ve got a tough schedule to start this conference with five games against MVP and SMC teams. So, we got to pick it up…,” Cone said. “We don’t control the schedule. We just have to deal with what we have. And we didn’t do a good job of dealing with that (against Magnolia).”
Now, there’s a saying: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
So, are Thompson and company tough enough? Cone and Ginebra’s legions of fans will find out soon enough.
