Tim Cone set to take over suddenly-struggling Gin Kings
Tim Cone is set to assume the head coaching position for Brgy. Ginebra’s next assignment which is against the NorthPort Batang Pier on Sunday, July 17 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The 64-year old American mentor left briefly for the US to join the Miami Heat’s summer league team as guest assistant coach.
With Cone gone, lead assistant Richard del Rosario took over the coaching reins and led the crowd darlings to 2 wins against 2 losses. Unfortunately, the Gin Kings slipped to 6-3 after the recent loss to the Meralco Bolts and are no longer in contention for the top two spots armed with twice-to-beat advantage in the quarterfinals.
Del Rosario stressed that Cone’s return is definitely a welcome development for the suddenly-struggling squad.
“Si Coach Tim will be back, that’s the good news. I think, Saturday morning, he will be here for the next game. At least, I’m sure his presence will give the players a huge lift,” said the former PBA player during an interview with SPIN.ph.
“Obviously, there is a lot of problems to be fixed. The only way is to fix it together. I can’t pinpoint just one particular thing that we need to fix. There’s a lot of things that we need to analyze, do a lot of soul searching.”
Brgy. Ginebra won the first two matches under del Rosario but lost the next two in lopsided fashion.
“It’s not really about the loss, losing the chance of twice-to-beat, we are good naman kahit sa best-of-three. We are not looking at that, kung best-of-three or twice-to-beat. It’s just the manner that we lost in the past two games. ‘Yun ang kailangan namin i-address. We have to show more teamsmanship and togetherness especially in times of adversity and that’s what we are going to address in the next couple of games,” explained del Rosario.
“Even in the playoffs, we are used to play back-to-back games. We are not going to use that as an excuse. We just didn’t show up again. We did that in two games already. But again, ‘yung lagi naming sinasabi, not too high after a win, not too low after a loss. We will take this and move on to the next game. That’s the most important thing for us, to get back on our feet and win in our next game,” he added.
