BEFORE Bay Area faced Barangay Ginebra for the first time in the eliminations of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup, Dragons head coach Brian Goorjian did a little background check on import Justin Brownlee as part of his preparation.
Goorjian contacted a good friend in Mike Dunlap, who happened to be a former assistant coach at St. John’s, the US school where Brownlee played.
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Dunlap is currently an assistant coach of the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA.
Goorjian said the Brownlee that Dunlap recalled was the Brownlee which showed up in that October 9 game, where the resident Barangay Ginebra import lit up for 46 points to deal the Dragons their first defeat of the conference.
The scoring output remains Brownlee's conference high.
“They obviously have a great team but Brownlee ran wild that night,” said Goorjian. “Everybody’s talking about [his] 46 points. And one of my best friends coached Brownlee in college in St. John’s and gave me a heads up that he is a hell of a man and a hell of a player.”
“We experienced that in that game. That was the start of the problem,” said Goorjian.
Through Brownlee’s efforts, the Gin Kings led by as many as 28 points with the five-time PBA champion hitting 17 of his 26 shots from the field including four threes. He also grabbed 12 rebounds.
Brownlee appreciated the kind words from his college coach.
“Coming from a great coach like himself is definitely very grateful and honored to be talked about in that sense from him. Of course, I do remember Mike Dunlap. He was a hell of a coach. Got a lot of memories with him as well,” said Brownlee.
Goorjian said it won’t be just Brownlee that the Dragons need to worry about as they begin their best-of-seven championship series against Ginebra on Christmas Day.
“There’s a lot of avenues that we need to get better at. But it’s something that we hoped we have progressed over the course of the year leading to this," he said.
"But again, they are a great basketball team. The cornerstones of the game, getting back on defense, controlling their halfcourt, we just have to be very well-polished at to win the series,” Goorjian added.
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