LA Tenorio was hardly bothered after being held scoreless in the Barangay Ginebra’s 93-82 loss to Meralco in the Game 1 of their best-of-three quarterfinals series, saying that the Gin Kings' execution should serve as a major concern for the team at this point.
“Okay lang, 'di ako bothered dun eh. I'm more bothered on how we played today. People will see individual stats and everything but they don't know what is happening inside the game plan,” said Tenorio who played 32 minutes in the game but only took five shots and missed all of those.
“I have to be more aggressive offensively pero di yun yung nabo-bother ako masyado in this game. It's really how we played as a team. Medyo di maganda yung connection, parang walang connection inside the court,” he added.
The Gin Kings indeed looked in disarray especially during the third frame when they allowed the Bolts to pull away for good. They struggled on keeping Meralco’s key players like Chris Newsome, Aaron Black and Allein Maliksi in check.The trio even breached the double figures right on the first half alone.
“We didn't do the game plan properly,” said Tenorio. “I think yung nangyari sa amin ngayon our defense which is yun yung identitty namin sa team. Ang gulo.”
“Pagdating sa playoffs we can't afford to commit mistakes defensively alam naman natin ‘yung Meralco diba. We can commit mistakes offensively but defensively we cannot commit mistakes against them kasi yun talaga yung strength nila, making harder for the other teams defensively and offensively,” he furthered.
Tenorio, however, vowed to bounce back and break out of the scoring slump come Game 2 where they will be fighting for their tournament lives.
“The good thing about it is we still have one more game to play. We still have a chance with our backs against the wall again, and for sure it's gonna be harder this time knowing sobrang eager ang Meralco na talagang talunin kami.”