By Olmin Leyba
ENJOYING a whopping 3-0 upperhand against Meralco head-to-head in the PBA Governors’ Cup finals doesn’t in any way give Barangay Ginebra a false sense of security heading into their latest titular duel.
“It’s the opposite. You start thinking of the odds, you start thinking, oh-oh, this gotta change some time,” Ginebra coach Tim Cone said in the recent Power and Play program on Radyo Singko.
“Do we have a secret formula against them? We certainly don’t. I wish we did.”
He pointed out that their prior faceoffs with Meralco were actually down-to-the-wire situations. In 2016, Justin Brownlee knocked down a booming trey at the buzzer to clinch it in Game 6, 91-88. The following year, before 54,000 fans, the Gin Kings beat the Bolts in Game 7, 101-96, and two years later, Ginebra won in five against their injury-hit rivals.
The rivals met again in the 2020 Philippine Cup semifinals in the Clark bubble and Mr. Cone’s troops needed a last-second triple from Scottie Thompson to prevail in the do-or-die Game 5, 83-80.
“Every series has been incredibly tight and could have gone either way. I worry about it, you know, one shot here or there could have gone in their favor this time,” said Mr. Cone.
The multi-titled mentor said Meralco import Tony Bishop and tall guards led by Chris Newsome present matchup issues for his crew.
“(Mr.) Bishop is tough to handle because he can do so many things, he can beat you in so many ways. He’s not incredibly strong in any one thing but he’s really good at many, many things. He can shoot from the perimeter, he can get to the basket, he’s a great rebounder, he’s a long defender, he can post up,” said Mr. Cone.
Mr. Newsome, he noted, has always been “difficult to guard” with his size and power; so do his backcourt peers like Bong Quinto and Allein Maliksi.
“They have a big guard lineup. There’s a lot of issues but the biggest thing is they play really, really well together,” Mr. Cone observed.
The Gin Kings and the Bolts kick off their fourth championship confrontation on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.