Ginebra is bracing for the worst after Isaac Go suffered an apparent knee injury during its eventual win over Rain or Shine on Friday night.
The Kings are still uncertain about the extent of which and may only know as much in the coming days, with the young big man brought to the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig for further checking.
“The win was a little bittersweet because we don’t know how Isaac Go is at this point,” lamented Coach Tim Cone after the 124-102 win at the SMART Araneta Coliseum. “It’s some kind of knee injury, but we don’t know the severity of it.”
Go went down in pain at the 3:32-mark of the opening frame as his right knee buckled upon rushing to challenge Felix Lemetti’s trey at the top of the key.
The 6-foot-8 forward had to be carried on his way to the bench, with all of the Big Dome concerned as it looked too familiar from two years ago.
It could be recalled that he was diagnosed with torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments plus a meniscus tear on that very same knee back in June of 2022, during his sophomore year in the league with Terrafirma.
Now he got hurt just seven games into the latest chapter of his budding career playing for Ginebra, and is facing a long layoff once again.
“Kinda like we won the battle, but we lost the war losing Isaac. He is a big part of what we’re trying to build,” said the champion mentor.
His possible absence, furthermore, serves as another big blow to a Barangay that’s still missing the services of Jamie Malonzo and Jeremiah Gray.
That’s why Cone and his deputies may have to “reconstruct” their rotation once more as the perennial contenders are a man down — again.
“We’re gonna have to kinda reconstruct our rotation with Isaac out. We don’t know how long he’s gonna be out — again, we don’t know the severity of the injury. It could be long-term, it could be short-term,” he said.
They’ve actually done as much against the Elasto Painters and playing small ball could be the band-aid solution to address the manpower problem.
“Tonight, we played small a lot. We put Stephen at the 4, and Jap and Justin at the 5. We may have to live with that a little bit,” Cone said.
Remaking the rotation may also mean adding some seldom-used pieces into the mix and the 66-year-old would like to believe that those he has in mind would be capable of delivering whenever their numbers get called.
“Raymond I think can play some valuable minutes,” he said, referring to seasoned big man Raymond Aguilar. “He knows our system, he knows what we do, he’s a physical type of player, so he can play a role for us.”
“Ben is still trying to find his way a little bit — Ben Adamos — but I think that he can step in as well. Not as maybe as well as Isaac can at this point, but if we need him to step in, we think we can get some valuable minutes from him.
“But it’s really gonna come down to how we reconstruct the rotation and who comes in and who comes out. We’ll have to take a look at that,” Cone closed.
