DASMARIÑAS CITY, Cavite. – Fittingly, Game 3 looked like a blockbuster Sunday night showdown pitting two heavyweights.
Close to two hours before tip-off, diehard fans lined up outside the venue amid the sweltering heat in this highly urbanized city with lots of them wearing jerseys that had their cage idols’ surnames printed on them.
Showing better poise in a dogfight’s endgame, Ginebra turned back San Miguel Beer 99-94 and wrested a 2-1 lead in their best-of-7 semifinals duel in the PBA Governors’ Cup at the City of Dasmariñas Arena here.
Former MVP Scottie Thompson threw an errant pass that landed straight at the hands of veteran teammate Joe Devance with 5:07 remaining, but the latter was at the scorer’s table, waiting for a dead ball situation.
Thompson redeemed himself from there with a pair of offensive and defensive rebounds–the last paving the way for a Justin Brownlee layup that gave the Kings a 97-90 cushion with 20 seconds to go and spelled the big difference as Ginebra held its ground for the big win.
Kings coach Tim Cone pointed to his charges’ stingy defense that proved to be one of the keys in rebounding from a 131-125 overtime loss to the Beermen in the second tiff last Friday.
Ginebra will try to push SMB on the brink in the fourth match of the race-to-4 series on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“We defended so much better tonight. We played ‘playoffs defense’ tonight and I thought that was really the key,” Cone said. “We had some uncertain moments in the third quarter after we came out from the halftime break.
“Thanks to Justin, we recovered. Thanks to this guy again down the stretch we were able to win it. We just played better defense tonight. That’s what I thought,” he added.
Brownlee fell a board shy of a double-double with 30 points, nine caroms, five assists and five blocks for the Kings while Japeth Aguilar chipped in 22 markers, eight rebounds and three dimes.
Maverick Ahanmisi and Stephen Holt also had 15 and 11 points, respectively for Ginebra.
The Kings led by as much as 52-41 on an Aguilar basket with 2:11 to play in the second quarter before they hung on for a 54-45 edge at the half.
Propped up by Beermen import EJ Anosike 14 points in the third, SMB battled back and grabbed a 76-72 advantage heading into the final stanza.
A Marcio Lassiter four-pointer pulled the Beermen to within 94-97 in the final 16 ticks, but Ahanmisi canned two free throws that sealed the deal for Ginebra.
Anosike carried the fight for SMB with 32 points and 10 rebounds while CJ Perez added 13 and four.
Lassiter also got 12 markers but reigning eight-time MVP June Mar Fajardo was held to just 12 points although he hauled down 14 boards.
The Kings’ multitude of supporters went home proudly waving their flags and the “Brownlee,” “Thompson,” and “Aguilar” jerseys until the end, at least for last night.