TNT, Ginebra collide in Antipolo
MANILA, Philippines — They’ve watched each other from a distance all conference long and now it’s time for defending champion TNT and challenger Barangay Ginebra to test each other out.
And at the grandest stage of the PBA Governors’ Cup at that.
“We’re curious to see what happens in Game 1 because we haven’t played them yet in this conference,” Ginebra coach Tim Cone told The STAR ahead of tonight’s finals opener at the Ynares Center in Antipolo City.
The peculiar situation is brought about by the group format implemented in the Season 49 opening tourney. TNT was bracketed in Group A and Ginebra was bunched in Group B in the eliminations and from there, they separately worked their way to the dream Last Dance.
While this counts as a rematch from their Season 47 championship series, it’s quite different in the sense that coach Chot Reyes is pitted against Cone this time. In the previous faceoff, it was TNT team manager Jojo Lastimosa who called the shots as Reyes focused fully on his Gilas Pilipinas duties then.
“We haven’t played them with RHJ (Rondae Hollis-Jefferson) since last year and even then it was kind of a different coach with Jojo as opposed to Chot. So this is going to be a new experience for us going against TNT,” said Cone.
“Game 1 will be very interesting from a coaching standpoint just because it will be interesting to see how Chot decides to attack what we do and how we do it. And we’re going to have to feel our way through a little bit,” he added.
With brilliant think tanks, great imports in Hollis-Jefferson and Justin Brownlee and topnotch local talents like TNT’s RR Pogoy, Calvin Oftana, Jayson Castro, Rey Nambatac and Kelly Williams and Ginebra’s Scottie Thompson, Japeth Aguilar, Stephen Holt and RJ Abarrientos on both sides, it won’t be surprising if this becomes a war of attrition.
“Hard to tell but yeah, I think it will go at least six games,” said Reyes.
While landing the first blow in the 7:30 p.m. encounter is a good starter, the TNT mentor stressed it’s really coming out with a strong performance consistently that would matter in the end.
“In a long series, it’s important (to win Game 1) but we’ve won a lot of series where we lost the first game. Important thing is to continue (playing well),”he said.
Hunger won’t be lacking on both sides.
Notes: The PBA expects to earn P1.5 to P2 million from ticket sales in Game 1, which the league has earmarked for relief efforts for victims of Super Typhoon Kristine. PBA chairman Ricky Vargas of TNT said the amounts raised will be turned over to the Alagang Kapatid Foundation of TV5 for distribution... San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo stayed in the hunt for a record-extending 11th Best Player of the Conference honors as he paced the statistical race at the end of the semis. Hollis-Jefferson, with 54.7 SPs, showed the way in the Best Import derby against Brownlee (50.9). Fajardo logged 44.8 average statistical points built around 21 points, a league-best 16.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists before SMB bombed out. Challenging the Kraken are NorthPort’s Arvin Tolentino (37.5 SPs), NLEX’ Robert Bolick (35.9), SMB teammate CJay Perez (33.9) and Ginebra duo Aguilar and Thompson who had identical 32.2.