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Alaska coach Tim Cone and his Aces will be driven by a common goal when they take the court Wednesday: Get Barangay Ginebra out of the way!
The Aces hold a commanding 3-0 lead over the Kings in their best-of-seven semifinal series and need just one more win to eliminate Ginebra and advance to the Finals of the 2009-10KFC PBA Philippine Cup.
Game 4 of the Alaska-Ginebra series is set at 7:30 p.m. at the Araneta Coliseum. The other semifinal series between San Miguel and Purefoods fires off at 5 o’clock.
Cone said they have nothing special for D-Day.
“We’re just going to focus on the things that made us successful and try to keep our momentum,” he said.
Nobody could blame Cone if he sounds as if the Aces were the underdogs and down 0-and-3. In his 20 years in the business the Alaska chieftain knows well that strange things could happen in a series like this.
Back in 2006, the Aces were 3-1 up on the Purefoods TJ Giants in their best-of-seven Philippine Cup semifinal showdown, only to lose the next three games.
“I’ve seen a lot of things happen one way or another. I’m smart enough to communicate that this [3-0 lead] is not safe at all. Against a different opponent, maybe it would be safe. But against Ginebra, no. They still believe,” Cone said.
Ginebra diehards are expected to show up in full force and fill the Big Dome up to the rafters to hopefully boost the confidence of their embattled court heroes.
Problem is the Kings are not playing with the same kind of zest and energy that enabled them to come back from a 0-2 deficit against Talk N’ Text in their best-of-five quarterfinal match-up to get here.
In the first three games of the series, Ginebra shot only 36 percent from the field and converted only 17 percent from the three-point range. The Kings also shot poorly from the free throw line, making just 65 percent of their freebies.
To make matters worse, history is not on the side of the Kings. No team in the 35-year history of the league has ever come back from a 0-3 hole.
But despite the greatest challenge confronting his team, Jong Uichico, the low-keyed Ginebra coach, isn’t losing hope.
“We just have to find ways to win,” he said. “If we could win on Wednesday, it will be only 1-3 and I know there’s a team that came back from that deficit.”
Meanwhile, second-seed SMB tries to make it two in a row and push Purefoods on the brink of elimination.
The Beermen lead the Giants, 2-1.
SMB coach Siot Tanquingcen has repeatedly said that defense will be their key to winning the series. His conviction hasn’t changed.
As for Ryan Gregorio, the Purefoods coach is convinced they have to win Game 4 if they intend to make the series interesting.
Making stops, he said, is not enough to beat SMB. He pointed to their horrendous shooting from the three-point range as reason why Purefoods is trailing SMB in the series.
In three games, the Giants have made just 11 of 56 attempts from the trifecta zone.
“We were making stops but there’s something in our ring that did not make the ball fall in,” Gregorio said. (DBC)
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