Ginebra paid dearly for coming in ‘unprepared’ against San Miguel.
The Kings got beaten badly in the battle between traditional contenders in PBA Philippine Cup action on Friday night, and that left Coach Tim Cone red-faced.
“When you’re not prepared to play this team, they can embarrass you,” he said moments after their 104-93 defeat at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
“And they embarrassed us tonight.”
While the margin may seem not that big for some, San Miguel totally dominated right from the get-go, as evidenced by their 22-6 start into the match.
A major factor behind that early struggle was the way they shot from the perimeter as the crowd darlings went a poor 2-for-20.
“That’s 10-percent shooting. We gotta credit their defense,” said Cone, whose charges trailed by as many as 23 points in the blowout.
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The humiliating night, according to the champion coach, was Ginebra paying dearly for the extra work it’s been putting in catching up to get in form.
“I don’t know, ’cause we’ve been working so hard trying to catch up, doing two a days and stuff. We just didn’t have our legs. I don’t know,” he offered.
“But frankly, it was an embarrassing performance by us tonight,” he added.
He’s never one to make excuses, though, giving San Miguel that credit it deserved especially to June Mar Fajardo and CJ Perez.
Perez finished with 23 points, six rebounds, and five assists on his way to getting Player of the Game honors, while Fajardo had 18 and 12.
“But pretty much it was just too much June Mar tonight. He was like plus-28 in plus-minus tonight. That’s incredible,” Cone said.
“And then CJ hit some really timely four-point shots that really crushed any kind of uprising we were trying to make — twice,” he added.
And if ever there’s any silver lining to a crushing result is the fact that it’s only their second game of the season-ending conference.
“We have a history, we know we can bounce back,” Cone said.
“And, we’re just still trying to find our legs and maybe trying to play, learning how to play without Justin. We’ll figure that out as we go forward in the conference.”
#WATCH: “That was not a lot of fun.” 😓
Coach Tim Cone reflects on Ginebra’s tough loss to San Miguel
📹 @justinebacnis /Tiebreaker Times #PBA2025 pic.twitter.com/3xA0eS8ufa
— Tiebreaker Times (@tiebreakertimes) April 25, 2025
