KING VIBES
Scottie Thompson could only be thankful that his historic performance came just when his team needed it most, as Barangay Ginebra turned its PBA Philippine Cup semifinal series with sister team San Miguel Beer into a best-of-three affair.
“Luckily, it was a good night for me,” Thompson said after finishing with 35 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in the Gin Kings’ 105-91 victory on Sunday before more than 15,000 fans at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Thompson became the first local player to produce a 30-point triple-double since 1990, when Ronnie Magsanoc came up with 32 points, 13 rebounds and 18 assists for Formula Shell in a victory over Pepsi in a game in the All-Filipino Conference.
Ironically, Magsanoc was on hand to witness Thompson’s series-saving outing as an analyst for the English-only broadcast of the game for cable channel PBA Rush.
Deep breath
Ginebra leveled the series at 2-2, making Game 5 on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum a pivotal showdown that will see one team take a step closer to the Finals.
Reporters tried to press Thompson to talk more about what coach Tim Cone described as a “legendary performance.” Still, he preferred to dissect Ginebra’s overall game, which came despite the Kings trailing big in the first half.
“Credit to my teammates because we were able to lift each other,” said Thompson while taking a deep breath in exhaustion after seeing action for 36 minutes.
Norbert Torres hit two crucial threes during the second half on his way to 13 points while also making life a living hell for June Mar Fajardo on the offensive side, while Jayson David bucked some miscues to add 12 points, three rebounds, seven assists, three steals and two blocks.
Thompson and Ginebra will be looking to do the same in Game 5, though they’ll need to walk that talk to beat San Miguel again.
“Hopefully we have the same approach, but it’s hard to have the same game every time,” said Thompson.
San Miguel squandered a chance to take a commanding 3-1 lead, especially after knocking down nine triples in the first quarter behind Chris Ross and CJ Perez. The Beermen would make just four the rest of the way.
Perez scored 22 points, Ross had 20, while Jericho Cruz added 15 points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals as he put the Beermen in a position to take leads in between the third and fourth before Ginebra found some needed momentum.
Fajardo, bothered by a shoulder injury, could only score nine points as he had some uncharacteristic misses under the shaded lane, though he grabbed 20 rebounds to continue his strong production off the glass.
“All we could do was try to weather the storm,” said Cone. “San Miguel came out firing, but [our players] kept their poise. They stuck to what we wanted to do and it started to turn around for us.”
