Coach Tim Cone was the first to admit that the experience Barangay Ginebra gained playing against foreign guest squad Bay Area during their Commissioner's Cup title series last January will come in handy as the Gin Kings collide with TNT Tropang Giga for the Governors' Cup trophy.
"That was definitely a confidence booster," Cone said, referring to Ginebra's Finals face off with Bay Area, which the league's moist popular squad eventually won, 4-3.
"It really helped playing against (Bay Area coach Brian) Goorjian. It was really touch. He makes incredible adjustment in the series."
Cone added the degree of difficulty to win the title series against the visiting foreign ball club was evident due to the "pingpong-like" nature of the race-to-four wins championship.
"The series went like pingpong, so it was basically the last man standing," said Cone, who went on to win his league-best 25th PBA championship as coach. "If it was a 12-game series, we could have pingponged to 12 games in the series."
The American mentor noted that discipline and focus are just two of the many qualities they learned to develop as a team on their way to the Commissioner's Cup title conquest.
"We took a lot from that series. In every playoffs, you learn a lot. You are very specific in what you do, and the players are tested discipline wise and they bring that in to the next one and next one," he stressed. "That last series with the dragons was a lot of fun, but it was really tough, and the players learned awful lot from him and got higher confidence."
Cone has high hopes that even though Ginebra enters the Finals starting this Easter Sunday possibly, still without injured Japeth Aguilar, along with LA Tenorio, who is still recovering from stage 3 colon cancer, the Gin Kings will be able to bring in their experience as they collide with the TNT Tropang Giga.
As for TNT interim coach Jojo Lastimosa, whose team also had its own taste of foreign exposure recently when the Tropang Giga joined the weeklong East Asia Super League Champions Week in Japan, he'd rather forget that episode.
"Kung sa Ginebra, confidence booster (playing against Bay Area), sa amin naman confidence buster," Lastimosa shared. "I was worried about that EASL debut because we could have been sidetracked with our focus, so we started losing big, and iI was worried how our confidence will be doing when we go back to PBA. Fortunately, it didn't affect how we played because (import) Rondae (Hollis-Jefferson) wasn't there in Japan."
TNT limped back home with a 0-2 campaign in Japan after opening the tournament with a 33-point beating at the hands of the Utsonomiya Brex, followed by an 11-point loss to eventual runner-up Seoul SK Knights at the close of the group stage play.
The much-awaited collision, slated this Easter Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, features a Ginebra side that is gunning for back-to-back Governors' Cup crowns, along with a fifth conference title since the 2016.
As for TNT, reaching the Governors' Cup Finals for the first time since the 2010-11 provides the proud franchise owned by sportsman-businessman Manny V. Pangilinan an opportunity to finally win its first championship in the season-ending conference.
