Japeth Aguilar hopes to see action for Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in the PBA Commissioner's Cup semi-finals after missing Sunday's best-of-five series opener against Rain or Shine because of an Achilles injury.
A swelling left Achilles he sustained during a looseball play with Meralco's Chris Newsome in Ginebra's quarterfinal sweep last Wednesday has relegated Aguilar to a spectator's role in Game 1 of the semi-finals between Kings and Rain or Shine Elasto Painters.
Aguilar's absence though, hardly mattered as Ginebra's frontline led by Greg Slaughter weathered the challenge of Rain or Shine's bulky import Reggie Johnson in drawing first blood in the best-of-five series.
"Usually nakakalaro naman ako pag may ganitong injury," Aguilar said. "Since nagstart career ko, pag natapilok ako, continue lang ako maglaro, pero this one may pain siya sa Achilles so hirap talag at di ko na pinilit."
Coach Tim Cone was glad that Aguilar's injury wasn't serious as Ginebra initially thought.
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"The initial reading was he had a slight tear in his Achilles, but after further review it just seemed like it was swelling," he said.
Cone, however, stressed that the team would rather take precautionary steps to make sure Aguilar is ready enough to return.
"We're being very cautious with him for two reasons. One, is that we want to make sure that he plays in this series. We don't want him to play one game and miss all the rest. We'd rather he miss one game and play all the rest.
"And also, he's a national team player. So we don't wanna mess with him as a national player as well. We want to make sure he stays healthy," said Cone.(JT)
