MANILA, Philippines — Tim Cone offered no excuses for Barangay Ginebra's embarrassing 104-88 loss to TNT in the opening match of their PBA Season 49 Governors' Cup Finals.
The American mentor said the Tropang Giga were "more locked in" compared to the Gin Kings.
"It was a bad game. They embarrassed us," Cone told reporters matter-of-factly after that 16-point beating in Game 1. "They were more locked in than we were. We just weren't locked in as much as we would like to be and
they took a lot of what we wanted to do away from us."
Cone recognized how bad they shot from downtown, something he admitted wasn't a pretty sight to see for the more than 11,000 crowd in attendance, who were predominantly Ginebra fans for the opening game of the best-of-seven title series in Antipolo.
"We shot the ball poorly, 2-for-21 from the three-point line," said the 66-year-old Cone. "It's just one of those games. But you hate how it happened in the first game of the championship series."
The Ginebra bench tactician said the team intends to watch the film and take a look at the different parts of Game 1 where TNT exploited the Gin Kings' weaknesses.
Interestingly, Ginebra's gunners like Maverick Ahanmisi, Stephen Holt, RJ Abarrientos and Scottie Thompson all struggled from three-point distance, while import Justin Brownlee, who still topped the Gin Kings in scoring with 23 points, took just two attempts from long range.
Thompson and Abarrientos accounted for the two triples of Ginebra during the fourth quarter, though both guards combined to shoot just 2-of-10 overall.
"They beat us individually one-on-one and really embarrassed our defense. We will see what we can do about it," said Cone.