ANTIPOLO City – Tim Cone admitted that TNT successfully played off Barangay Ginebra’s strengths, leading to a 104-88 romp by Tropang Giga in Game 1 of the PBA Governors’ Cup Finals.

As the No. 1 three-point shooting team in the conference, the Kings were held by Tropang Giga to a miserable 9.5 percent from beyond the arc, a horrible shooting spree that the Ginebra coach pointed out led to their downfall.

“They took away a lot of what we wanted to do. We shot the ball poorly going 2-for-21 from the three-point line,” Cone said following the 16-point outburst in front of a record 11,020 at the Ynares Center.

“So it’s just one of those games. You hate to see that happen in the first game of a championship series.”

From the group stage to the semifinals, the Kings topped the three-point shooting department at a 37.2 percent clip.

But on Sunday night, only Scottie Thompson and rookie RJ Abarrientos accounted for the two 3-pointers the Kings converted. In fact, the two were 2 out of 10 from the same area.

Import Justine Brownlee was 0-of-2 from three-point range, while Maverick Ahanmisi and Stephen Holt were both 0-of-3.

Cone added that the Tropang Giga was obviously blocked better than the Kings in Game 1.

“They were more closed than us. We weren’t locked in as much as we would have liked to have been,” said the 66-year-old champion coach.

The Kings’ poor shooting at the start allowed Tropang Giga to dictate the tempo of the game, which they led 89-69.

“They beat us one-on-one and really embarrassed our defense,” Cone said.

But in typical Ginebra never-say-die fashion, Cone is putting Game 1 behind him and looking forward to the adjustments the team can make in the next game on Wednesday.

“We have to come back and move on. See what we can do to change our fortunes in Game 2,” the Ginebra mentor said. “We’ll see what we can do about it.

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