MANILA – Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings will have to contend with Rain or Shine Elasto Painters in their 2018 PBA Commissioner’s Cup best-of-five semifinals series without Japeth Aguilar.
His presence in Game 2 on Tuesday night remains doubtful as the center was still recovering from an Achilles tendon injury he suffered during practice, Kings head coach Tim Cone said.
“(Aguilar) got hit in his Achilles, so he has some significant swelling in his Achilles tendon area. We don’t know how long exactly he’ll be out,” Cone said after their 102-89 win over Painters in Game 1 on Sunday night.
“We’re being very cautious with him for two reasons,” said Cone.
“One is that we want to make sure that he plays in this series. We don’t want him to play one game and miss all the rest. We’d rather he miss one game and play all the rest.
“And also, he’s a national team player. So we don’t wanna mess with him as a national team player as well. We want to make sure he stays healthy.”
Aguilar, also a Gilas Pilipinas center, is a vital cog for Kings this Commissioner’s Cup, where he averages 15.92 points, 6.92 rebounds, 1.69 assists, and 1 block per outing.
But his absence was hardly felt in the series opener. Kings got valuable contributions from Greg Slaughter, Justin Brownlee, and even the seldom-used Raymond Aguilar and Jervy Cruz.
“The best part about doing (Game 1) was being able to do it without Japeth,” said Cone.
“We were trying to find minutes to give Greg breaks and he did a great job in extended minutes. We got contributions from Jervy a little bit, Raymond a little bit.
“Hopefully, he (Aguilar) will be back in our next game. But right now it’s (a) 50-50 (chance).”/PN
