LUCENA, QUEZON — Barangay Ginebra San Miguel was a “very poor defensive team” in Game Two of the 2019 PBA Governors’ Cup Finals.
That’s the assessment offered by coach Tim Cone as the Gin Kings suffered a close 102-104 loss to Meralco Friday, enabling the Bolts to tie the best-of-seven series to one game apiece.
“We’re just a very poor defensive team tonight, and… I don’t know. They were able to do exactly what they wanted,” said the decorated coach moments after the game at Quezon Convention Center here.
Their poor defensive performance also allowed Meralco to drill a PBA Finals franchise-record 16 three-pointers.
Four of those came from Nard Pinto — who came in for Baser Amer after the latter got two fouls four minutes into the match — in the first alone to help Meralco end the period with a 36-21 lead.
A triple from Amer then gave the Bolts their biggest lead of the game at 19, 61-42, with 33.5 ticks left in the second stanza.
“They shot the ball really well tonight, and Norman Black talked about that. They got their shots in. But our defense allowed a lot of open shots,” said Cone as Meralco shot 45.9-percent.
Despite that, the Barangay managed to come back from the huge deficit. It ran a box-and-one, allowing the crowd darlings to tie the game at 70 with 2:31 remaining in the third canto.
That scheme may have shown promise, but the 61-year-old Cone said that Ginebra can’t rely on it all series long.
“We had to use a gimmick defense to do it and that’s not going to do it for the whole series. We got to get better defensively,” he said.
“We got a lot to go back to in the drawing board.”
