ONE of Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone's predictions has come true when San Miguel Beer indeed managed to dig deep and came up with an equalizer in their PBA Governors' Cup semifinals duel.
Cone is now hoping another of his projections will hold true when his Kings and the Beermen clash anew Sunday in what could be a pivotal game at the Dasmarinas City Arena in Cavite.
Playing the kind of game Cone expected, SMB managed to carve out a 131-125 overtime decision last Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum to negate the Kings' 122-105 win in the best-of-seven series' opener just two days before.
The way his Beermen managed to execute much better on both ends of the floor than in Game 1 pleased coach Jorge Gallent. But he hastily pointed out that their work remains clearly cut out.
"We just tied the series," said Gallent after Game 2.
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"It just became a best-of-five, so we just have to work harder because Ginebra is really a tough team. We just have to have schemes offensively and defensively so that 'yung flow ng offense and defense will always be there."
His players' failure to come up with a fitting follow-up to their initial win over SMB was actually expected by Cone.
"Can we continue to motivate ourselves into Game 2? 'Cause now, you know, we did it, we're gonna feel good about ourselves," Cone offered moments after the opener.
"But can we turn around and follow it up in Game 2? That's gonna be our big question because now that we have done that and beaten them, they're gonna come back and use all of that talent and experience to play a really good game on Game 2."
But now that it's over and done with, the country's winningest coach also knows his team is equally capable of bouncing back and matching SMB's poise and savvy before eventually coming out on top of what he bets would be a close series.
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"It's like ping pong, back-and-forth. It's hard to sustain that motivation, game after game after game, against a really good team like San Miguel... or against us. Them against us or us against them," noted Cone.
Indeed, Justin Brownlee, Stephen Holt, Japeth Aguilar, and Scottie Thompson could be considered evenly matched up against SMB's June Mar Fajardo, EJ Anosike, CJ Perez, and Marcio Lassiter.
Which team comes up with a surprise, like what RJ Abarrientos did for the Kings in the opener and Terrence Romeo for the Beermen in Game 2 should spell the difference.
Limited to just six points in Game 1, Romeo flashed his old fiery form last Friday with a personal conference-high 26, 22 of those in the fourth quarter and OT, that pointed SMB to the win.
"He's always ready for that competition. He shows that if his name is called, he will deliver," said Gallent. "I'm very happy that Terrence played well and I hope he continues to play like that so we can pull out (more) victories." (NC)
