AFTER failing to reach the finals in PBA Season 48, Barangay Ginebra is back with a vengeance as it bumped off San Miguel, 102-99, for the last ticket to the Governors Cup championship series.
The Kings heaved a sigh of relief after the Beermen botched their final two attempts in the last 16 seconds including a potential game-winning 4 by import EJ Anosike to escape with the thrilling Game 6 win in a packed Smart Araneta Coliseum on Sunday.
It will be the first finals appearance for the franchise since losing its Governors Cup title to TNT at the end of Season 47.
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Now the Kings get the chance to regain their crown as they’re set to face the Tropang Giga in the best-of-seven rematch of their 2023 title showdown.
Before Game 1 of the finals, here’s a quick takeaway from the final game of the Ginebra-San Miguel semifinals series.
1. KINGS, BEERMEN LIVED AND DIED ON SHORT ROTATIONS – both teams relied on just a few players in the series-clinching game, with coach Tim Cone sticking to just a seven-man unit in the endgame and Jorge Gallent on a six-man platoon. As expected, all played heavy minutes with EJ Anosike playing the entire 48-minute game. June Mar Fajardo and Marcio Lassiter, also logged heavy 40-minute games, while CJ Perez was a few seconds less from playing 40 minutes, which could probably explain why Lassiter and Perez appeared to have no more legs in the dying seconds of the thrilling game. In contrast, Ginebra also had two players who logged in 40 minutes of playing in Justine Brownlee and Scottie Thompson. But Cone shuffled his personnel much better at crunchtime, with Ralph Cu and Stephen Holt holding the fort early in the final quarter, before Thompson, Maverick Ahanmisi, and rookie RJ Abarrientos stayed on the floor with Brownlee and Japeth Aguilar for the finish.
2. WHERE’S TERRENCE ROMEO? – as questions abound on the Beermen’s failure to make a third straight trip to the finals, one of the issues asked was the absence of Romeo for most of Game 6. The hero of the team’s Game 2 overtime victory only suited up for seven minutes and went scoreless in his stint as he shot 0-of-3 from the field. He stood beside Kyt Jimenez at the sidelines near the San Miguel basket for the entire fourth period as the team was fighting for dear life. The Beermen subbed just one player in the final 12 minutes, with Jericho Cruz coming in for Don Trollano. The Kings’ bench ended up outscoring their Beermen counterpart, 23-10.
3. BROWNLEE ALWAYS SAVE HIS BEST FOR LAST – in a tightly-fought contest and the stakes high, the Ginebra import knew how to pace himself. Brownlee deferred to teammates Aguilar, Abarrientos, and the hot-shooting Ahanmisi in the first three quarters, before striking like an assassin when it mattered most. He had nine in the pivotal fourth, including a clutch 3 from the top off an Aguilar pick to give the Kings a 102-98 lead with 1:47 to go. The crucial basket coming off a Ginebra timeout, somehow extinguished a San Miguel mini-rally as Fajardo and Anosike scored on back-to-back possessions entering the final two minutes of the match. Brownlee’s hit from long range was enough to preserve the lead and the win for the Kings.
4. SMB DIDN’T UTILIZE ITS BENCH – the Beermen obviously has the deeper rotation between the two teams. Unfortunately, Mo Tautuaa, Rodney Brondial, Jeron Teng, Simon Enciso, and Kris Rosales didn’t log a minute during the closeout game. Only Trollano, Romeo, Vic Manuel, and Chris Ross came off the bench for San Miguel.
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