Maverick Ahanmisi pinned the blame to no one else but themselves after Barangay Ginebra squandered a huge lead and ultimately bowed to Magnolia as the rivals met in the PBA Season 48 Commissioner’s Cup, Sunday night.
“Obviously, I’m not as happy as I should be right now,” lamented the new Gin King moments after the crushing 93-91 defeat at the SMART Araneta Coliseum. “We blew a [26]-point lead. We can’t blame anybody but ourselves.”
Ahanmisi was supposed to become the reigning champions’ savior when his three-pointer was eventually counted by the referees following a successful challenge by Coach Tim Cone, giving them the 89-86 lead with 2:14 left.
It was a thorough check by game officials as they initially negated the basket, which he took while Paul Lee was called for a foul against Tony Bishop.
He could’ve been Mr. Clutch for Ginebra but regardless, Ahanmisi said that they should not have allowed the game to be that close.
“Obviously, you wanna make every shot you take. But, like, it shouldn’t have gotten to that point,” said the 32-year-old, who finished with 21 points.
“Like I said, we were up 26, and that was completely on us,” he furthered.
“We didn’t defend well in the second half. They started attacking our pick-and-roll, so, you know, we just collapsed in the second half.”
It’s the same take he offered when asked about the officiating, which Cone and Co. had strong feelings about as evidenced by how livid they were in the last 5.5 second when Mark Barroca defended Scottie Thompson’s rim attack.
“We could go on and on about officiating or whatever. We lost that game,” he said.
“We were up [26] points. We had a good enough cushion … we didn’t focus.”
