IT’S NOW A SPRINT
Barangay Ginebra turned the PBA Governors’ Cup Finals into a best-of-three on Sunday after the Gin Kings finally showed what they failed to do in the first three games of the series, and that is to chop down opponents offensively.
The Kings pulled out a 106-92 victory before a big crowd at Smart Araneta Coliseum after going 56 percent from the field highlighted by timely outside shots, while making the Tropang Giga play catch up practically all night.
“It’s one of those games where we hit some big shots and we kinda have a habit of doing that throughout the conference,” coach Tim Cone said after making it 2-2 and seemingly wresting complete command of the best-of-seven series. “Hopefully we can [keep] doing that.
Justin Brownlee finished with 34 points—a series-high for the usually prolific import—while Stephen Holt and Maverick Ahanmisi were among the vital contributors with their play on both ends.
Ginebra certainly has all the confidence heading into Game 5 on Wednesday and this batch of Kings has just put itself in position to duplicate championship comebacks that happened in two different decades that form part of Ginebra’s “never-say-die” lore.
That is unless the Tropang Giga, who allowed the Kings to breach 100 points for the first time in the series after giving up 86 in each of their two wins and 87 in the Game 3 setback, can use the two-day rest to find a counter to what Ginebra has been successful at.
“All we did was to tie the series. It’s zero-zero,” said Cone.
Best Import struggles
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, named Best Import before tipoff after defeating Brownlee, put up 28 points, nine rebounds and four assists but once again had a challenging time while being guarded by Holt.
Calvin Oftana put up 24 points in his best performance of the Finals, but was left frustrated as TNT couldn’t close the gap throughout the second half.
Ahanmisi tallied 18 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals in another bench role even as Holt went for 18 points as well, spiked by four three-pointers, plus five steals for the Gin Kings.
Japeth Aguilar also scored 18 on the night he fell short in the Best Player of the Conference (BPC) derby won by San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo.
Fajardo had 989 points compared to Aguilar’s 664 for a record-extended 11th BPC. His 465 points from the stats, tops among candidates, was also aided by 476 media votes while placing second in player votes with 48.
