Ginebra head coach Tim Cone is letting LA Tenorio off the hook after his blunder late in Game Three of their PBA Governors’ Cup semis against NLEX, Sunday.
The veteran floor general went for a lay-up with eight-tenths of a second left, drawing criticism from fans online as the Gin Kings were down by three at that point following the and-one play by Cameron Clark on the other end.
It was also him who committed the big turnover moments prior, where his pass to Justin Brownlee was intercepted by the Road Warriors’ import.
The Barangay lost, 85-86, foiling their bid of sweeping the best-of-five series en route to their seventh Finals appearance in six seasons.
The champion mentor said that Tenorio wasn’t aware of the differential, a situation that Cone himself admitted he’s been in one too many times.
“LA thought they were up by two instead of three, and that’s happened to me so many times when I thought we were up by two and find out we were down three or up three whatever,” he said after the match at the Mall of Asia Arena.
“It’s so easy to lose especially after a free throw because your mind is already thinking it’s two points, then they forget that the free throw goes in.”
Then again, Cone is not letting one error change the way he looks at Tenorio, who finished with 10 points and nine assists in the defeat.
“LA has won so many games for us. He’s gonna get a bye on this one, that’s not a problem,” he said. “The key for him is just moving on — put it away and move on, That’s what we all gotta do. We gotta put it away and move on.”
Cone, though, lamented some aspects that factored in the loss, from going 13-of-27 from the line to the costly turnovers in the end.
“We were our own worst enemy,” the league’s 23-time champion mentor said. “We missed fourteen free throws, we made two terrible turnovers down the stretch, and we missed some layups throughout the game.
“Scottie made a couple of fantastic moves and missed the shot. So it was just one of those nights where we just tried to grind it out, grind it out, but it just didn’t happen for us in the end. We made some mistakes and that was it.”
Still, Cone liked the way his wards fought despite missing the services of Japeth Aguilar for the second game in a row due to his calf injury.
Now, it will be about recovering in the next couple of days before going back into action on Game Four on Wednesday as they try to close it out.
“Got a couple of days to get our legs,” he said. “I was afraid that we weren’t gonna have good legs tonight but I thought we did a great job of grinding without Japeth and we’ll see if we can do it again.
“And, we’ll see how Japeth responds over the next couple of days and also Aljon. Except for Stanley and Jared, maybe we’ll be a full complement on Wednesday. We’ll see.”
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