Life goes on for Barangay Ginebra.
On the heels of its third straight finals setback at the hands of TNT, the league’s crowd darling bounced back strong and went business as usual in beating the Terrafirma Dyip, 101-80.
Japeth Aguilar, a 38-year-old center, came out with probably his most productive game offensively for the Gin Kings as he erupted for 30 points, 22 of them coming in the first half.
While other squads had difficulty recovering from a frustrating finals loss, the Gin Kings have found the resolve to get their minds at the task at hand.
Tim Cone, the winningest coach in the PBA, is no stranger to getting back up after losing a tournament and instilled that mentality to the Gin Kings.
“It’s not an issue for us. I think our guys are best in terms of moving forward,” said Cone, referring to the Gin Kings’ third straight finals setback against the Rondae Hollis-Jefferson led TNT.
“We’re moving on and we’re motivated because it’s the All-Filipino. We want to get off and try to get our feet wet, trying to win it.”
But TNT, Ginebra’s conqueror in the past three finals meeting that they had, was not at its usual elements.
With the grand slam now on sight, the Tropang 5G will need to come out with a good start, but their launch were immediately met by a road block put up by NLEX, which delivered a sound beating to the back-to-back titlists, 91-74.
Six players wound up in double figures for the Road Warriors with JB Bahio coming away with a double-double performance of 13 points and 12 boards.
Robert Bolick also added 13 markers, the same output produced by Xyrus Torres, while Javee Mocon contributed 11. Enoch Valdez and Brandon Ramirez each tallied 10 markers for NLEX.
