Bad memories
Joe Devance was limited to just 18 minutes during the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel’s top-seed clinching win against the Mahindra Floodbuster on Friday night. His limited minutes were not due to the Gin Kings resting their top stars for the next round, however.
“We’re trying to conserve some minutes, especially Joe. He has his problems with his foot again,” disclosed second-year Ginebra mentor Tim Cone.
“He’s been in and out of practice and we’re hoping to keep him close to a hundred percent for the quarters.”
The foot injury is an unwelcome development for Ginebra entering the playoffs — and more so for the 6-foot-7 point forward as he had been plagued by a nagging torn plantar fascia during the Philippine Cup playoffs.
“I’ll get an x-ray and see what they say. I don’t know,” the 35-year-old shared.
“It’s a little frustrating but we’ll see what happens.”
Still, the Honolulu, Hawaii-born cager is hopeful that he would not need to take anesthetic shots to survive another playoff grind.
“Bad memories. Hopefully, I don’t have to do all that stuff again,” admitted Devance, who was squeamish just thinking about it.
“I’ll just play through the pain. Hopefully the doctors can say something about my foot.”
With Devance averaging 11.6 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 3.3 assists in 26.99 minutes per contest this conference, the Barangay are hoping that he will not have to go through the same ordeal again.
