JUSTINE Brownlee felt great atfer finally bagging his first ever PBA Best Import award. But the ultimate team player has something else in mind.
“You don’t want to be caught up into that, of course,” said Brownlee of the personal feat he achieved by beating San Miguel counterpart Renaldo Balkman. “It was great, but the task at hand is winning the championship.”
The 30-year-old Brownlee, according to league resident statistician Fidel Mangonon III, became the seventh Barangay Ginebra reinforcement to win the award after Michael Hackett, Jamie Waller, Carlos Briggs, Wes Matthews, Chris Alexander, and Nate Brumfield.
“It’s a great accomplishment, the prestige of this league is, the great imports that played here and this year as well. It’s a great compliment for myself,” said Brownlee of upholding Ginebra’s record of producing some of the finest imports in the league.
Brownlee was quick to prove how much he deserved the title.
He waxed hot right from the get-go of Friday night’s Game Four, scoring 21 of his 37 points in the first half as the Kings rode on his broad shoulders to hack out a 130-100 beating of the Beermen and tied the Commissioner’s Cup finals at two-games apiece.
Brownlee finished shooting 83 percent from the floor (15-of-18), including 4-of-5 from three-point range, and had 11 rebounds and seven assists in the fourth straight blowout game in the title series.
A 17-0 start by the Kings set the tone for the rout and left Brownlee in disbelief.
“Very shocked, we didn’t expect to come in and win this way. The only thing we do is to try to come out with a one-point win,” he admitted.
“But luckily tonight we got going offensively. I think our offense did a great job of helping our defense. We shot the ball well and got a lot of passes, so the tempo of the game went in our favor.”
Brownlee also got a lot of local support as big men Greg Slaughter and Joe Devance combined for 37 points, while veteran guard LA Tenorio added 17.
The newly-crowned Best Import hopes the Kings would be able to sustain the effort for the rest of the series, which is now reduced to a best-of-three.
“That was great tonight. Guys stepped up. We knew we had to play well to give us a chance to win this game. I think everybody was just very focused trying to do whatever we can to win,” said Brownlee.
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