By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
THE championship for the season-ending Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup gets settled once and for all today as protagonists Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings and Meralco Bolts tangle in a winner-take-all Game Seven at the Philippine Arena.
Set up after the Bolts showcased a gutsy performance in Game Six on Wednesday to stave off elimination, 98-91, the two teams now go at it for all the marbles in the scheduled 7 p.m. encounter at the Bocaue, Bulacan, arena that attracted humongous crowd in Games 5 and 6.
Meralco proved itself an unwilling party even in the face of a determined push by defending champion Barangay Ginebra to finish off things last time around to stay alive.
Import Allen Durham led the charge anew for the Bolts, finishing with 28 points and 19 rebounds while getting major support from veteran big man Reynel Hugnatan who had 24 points, hitting six triples, and seven rebounds.
Guard Garvo Lanete also came up big for Meralco with 15 points, going six-of-11 from the field, and so did Chris Newsome with a near triple-double of 10 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds.
Barangay Ginebra, for its part, was paced by Justin Brownlee with 23 points and nine rebounds followed by Greg Slaughter with 18 points and LA Tenorio and Scottie Thompson with 12 markers each.
Recognizing that they missed out on a good chance to close out things, Kings coach Tim Cone said there is no way for them to go but to pick up the pieces and be ready for the winner-take-all today.
“Closeout games are really tough. We really wanted to end today but it did not happen. We had a bad start and they had a good start. We played catch-up all throughout the game but we just could not go over the hump. We could get the big stop that we needed and we did get the rebound that we needed,” he said.
“But it is done, it’s over. And now we have what every wants which is a Game Seven. We cannot spend too much time feeling sorry for what happened in Game Six. We’re looking to fight in the next game,” Mr. Cone added.
A CHANCE
For the Bolts, their Game Six victory was just one step toward their ultimate goal of winning their first title in franchise history which they are bent on seeing completed.
“We had to fight it out up to the end. Our battle cry tonight was to play on Friday to give ourselves a chance. And I’m happy the players responded to it,” said winning coach Norman Black after the game.
The Meralco coach though was quick to say that they expect nothing easy in the sudden death as Mr. Cone and the rest of the Kings could only be expected to make the necessary adjustments, needing for the Bolts to be ready.
“One thing I know about Coach Tim is that you cannot do the same thing to him twice. I’m sure they will use the next 48 hours to come back and we have to be prepared for it,” Mr. Black said.
For today’s Game Seven, it is expected that fans would trek to the Philippine Arena once again much like in the previous two finals games.
In Game Five on Sunday, total crowd in attendance was at 36,445 while in Game Six it went even higher to 53,642.
