LA Tenorio hits at referee after offensive foul call on Scottie Thompson 'decided' Ginebra-Meralco clincher

LA Tenorio was mad at the referees for an offensive foul call on Scottie Thompson. PBA Images

By Ivan Saldajeno

PASAY--Seeing LA Tenorio getting too emotional in a game is a rarity even during his amateur days.

However, the unusual happened on Sunday night.

As he made his way back home after Ginebra's PBA Philippine Cup quarterfinal loss to Meralco, an upset Tenorio exited the Gin Kings' designated dugout at the Mall of Asia Arena.

He initially declined an interview with reporters who covered the game, but he eventually uttered some choice words at Peter Balao, one of the referees who officiated their rubber match.

"Sabihin niyo sa kanya, '(expletive)!' Siya nag-decide ng laro," Tenorio, usually mild-mannered, said curtly, still emotional from the offensive foul called on Scottie Thompson with 10.3 seconds left in the game.

While Thompson was just sitting down in shock after he was called for the foul that eventually disqualified him the rest of the way, it was actually Tenorio who was fuming and even confronted Balao.

Replays showed that Thompson apparently warded off Cliff Hodge while going for the potential game-tying layup.

However, Tenorio believed that Hodge flopped during the play, thus, confronting the designated leader of the officiating.

Ginebra still got the ball back after Christian Standhardinger forced a held ball situation with Aaron Black with the bigger Standhardinger winning the tip, but Stanley Pringle missed a pull-up jumper as time expired that could have sent the game to overtime and the team fell short of completing a comeback from 21 points down to steal the best-of-three series away from Meralco.

"Ang ganda-ganda ng laro eh," Tenorio rued.

Balao, Rey Yante, Mike Flordeliza, and Jerry Narandan are expected to assess how they officiated the game on Monday.

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