MANILA, Philippines — The Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings will need to be virtually perfect if they hope to once again bring down the San Miguel Beermen in the PBA Philippine Cup finals, says head coach Tim Cone.
The Gin Kings were not too shabby in last Wednesday's Game 3, and Cone graded their effort an "A-minus." However, a brutal finish to the game doomed the perennial crowd favorites, as San Miguel ended the contest on a 17-2 run while holding Ginebra scoreless in the last four minutes.
San Miguel took Game 3, 99-88, for a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, and Cone declared afterward that an "A-minus" game "wasn't enough."
"By and large, coming from out of town, playing a tough game (in Game 2), I thought we played pretty well," Cone said. "But A-minus isn't good enough for this team. This team is just too good, and they have too many weapons."
"We have to play better than an A-minus game," he stressed. "We gotta get it up to A-plus, if we want to beat this team."
Against any other team, Ginebra's "A-minus" game would be enough, and indeed, Cone and his crew were in control most of the way in Game 3, even leading by as many as 12 points, 41-29, halfway through the second period.
But San Miguel would always find a way to bounce back and, in crunch time, the defending champions simply shredded Ginebra's defense.
"They just beat us up down the stretch," Cone said.
"We played the game the way we wanted to, we liked the way we were playing, we liked the tempo that we were playing, our second group played very well, but down the stretch we just didn't execute on both sides of the ball, defensively or offensively."
Ginebra's struggles are partly due to fatigue, Cone said, with their bigs — Dave Marcelo and Japeth Aguilar — playing through exhaustion. Cone lost one forward to injury, with Jervy Cruz sitting out due to an injured shoulder as Joe Devance simply "wore down" in the fourth quarter.
"They didn't play badly," Cone said of his forwards. "They just played tired . . . They made fatigued mistakes, especially defensively."
"Jervy would have helped, but you go with what you have. We've done a good job of stepping up for each other, and I thought we stepped up for each other today. Just did not play well in the last four minutes," he added.
Cone is now hoping that Ginebra can submit an "A-plus" performance on Friday, where the Gin Kings will find themselves in a "must-win" situation.
"Hopefully we can get Game 4. It's almost a must-win for us. You don't come back from 3-1 very often, so it's a must-win," he said.
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