At San Mig Coffee, Tim Cone demands defensive commitment from top guns Yap, Simon

Rey Joble, InterAKTV · Friday, November 23, 2012 · 10:37 pm

AKTV/Paul Ryan Tan

San Mig Coffee coach Tim Cone has been associated with the triangle offense, but ask the coach and he would proudly claim that he does his best work on the defensive end.
And when he took over the Purefoods franchise last season, he wanted to instill a culture of defensive commitment across the roster.
“When we first came in, our main objective is to turn this team into a defensive unit,” Cone told InterAKTV.
That included getting the team’s top guns James Yap and Peter June Simon, who were known almost as much for their lackluster defense as their scoring prowess, to buy into his system on defense.
“We never had a problem with these two players learning our defensive schemes. Other star players may have problems committing themselves to defense, but James and PJ are two very coachable players willing to do things defensively.”
After 11 games, San Mig Coffee has remained the league’s top defensive team.
“There’s no real secret about how we do things. It’s more about the fundamentals and attention to details. When we say fundamentals, it’s about staying low defensively, what to do with player on the ball and player without the ball,” said Cone
“When James and PJ learned that they need to defend in order for us to win, they themselves committed to defense. I think the two players are far better defensively than the first time we handled them more than a year ago.”
Assistant coach Jeffrey Cariaso said it’s all about commitment for the two stars.
“They committed themselves to defense, including James, the star of the team. He’s my barometer. He may not be the real stopper, but he has definitely improved defensively. If there’s one thing I’m really proud of in more than a year we’ve been in this team, it’s our improvement on defense,” said Cariaso, a renowned stopper during his playing career, when he was named to the All-Defensive team as a member of four different PBA squads.
“But you need to work on it every practice because there’s a tendency for them to go back at the old habits.”
Against Air 21 Friday night, the Mixers clamped down on defense late, holding the Express scoreless in a four-minute stretch to preserve the win.
But Cone has the luxury of a defensive ace up his sleeve in Marc Pingris, whom he could turn to in just about any situation.
“Obviously, he’s our secret weapon. He can guard all players we want him to defend. He can guard a point guard, a shooter, a power forward and a center. Whenever there’s trouble on defense, we count on Ping,” added Cone.

source: http://www.interaksyon.com/interaktv/at-san-mig-coffee-tim-cone-demands-defensive-commitment-from-top-guns-yap-simon