The 10th Manila Clasico of the year proved to be another vintage performance, as 48 minutes were not enough to settle the game. But the match could have ended in regulation if not for Japeth Aguilar fouling a three-point attempting Malcolm Hill with 0.6 seconds remaining, sending the game into extra time.
“I told him to foul. No, I’m just kidding,” quipped head coach Tim Cone after the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel survived the Star Hotshots in overtime, 105-101.
Aguilar, who has been in the league for eight years, shared that Hill, 21, displayed enough composure during the end of regulation to pull off a pump fake on him.
“Yung balak ko talaga I was gonna go over him and he stopped, ibig sabihin ko mag-stastay ako sa likod niya.
“Pero he did a good job kasi nag-pull back siya and nag-pump fake pa,” recalled Aguilar of that moment.
“We were trying to switch out, and we had Japeth out there specifically because he has the ability to switch out on smaller guys, and you know Japeth is a shot-blocker. So his instinct on a pump fake is to jump for the shot, and he just went to his instincts,” added Cone, trying to make light of what happened.
“You know, obviously it wasn’t a good instinct, it wasn’t the right thing to do, but he just went to his instincts, and in those situations, you just gotta try to stay disciplined.”
Not to dwelling from that blunder, the 30-year-old more than made up for it by nailing the dagger with 5.3 seconds remaining that lifted Ginebra to its sixth straight win.
“Proud ako sa teammates ko. As the match escalated, talagang we picked each other up and nagtulugan kami. Test of character sa amin itong game na to,” said Aguilar, who finished with 12 points and nine rebounds.
And as coach Tim Cone said, Aguilar simply has to “move on”.
