Barangay Ginebra asserted its might as the playoff top seed and crushed GlobalPort, 96-85, to secure a berth in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup best-of-five semifinals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum Tuesday night.
Justin Brownlee wrought havoc on both ends, with Scottie Thompson, Japeth Aguilar and LA Tenorio also doing significant damage as the Kings tore the Batang Pier apart to advance to the Final Four versus the winner of the TNT KaTropa-Meralco quarters matchup.
The Batang Pier put up pockets of resistance before the Kings unleashed their most decisive run to pull away for good at 76-51 in the third period.
The Kings made another key step towards a possible third straight finale on their 11-point drubbing of the Batang Pier marred by a flagrant infraction by Terrence Romeo on LA Tenorio with 3:28 left to play.
Ejected from the game, Romeo still engaged Tenorio and even the Ginebra crowd in a taunting duel on his way to the dugout. Both players are likely to draw sanction from the Commissioner’s Office.
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“It’s about two tough guys going at it. LA is a feisty player who won’t back down against anybody. He’s defending Romeo very well in the stretch, and Romeo won’t back down either,” said Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
“They’re two interesting personalities. It came from two competitive spirits,” added Cone of the fracas.
The Kings breezed through nonetheless, preserving the tremendous efforts of Brownlee and Aguilar. The former churned out 39 points and nine rebounds while the latter collected 21 markers and eight boards.
“The turning point came when Japeth started dominating the paint in the third. He blocked shots and turned their shots. It also hurt when Justin started hitting his shots,” said Cone.
“And we moved on. We’re going up against hulking import as both TNT and Meralco have their hulks. It will be tough for us to defend. We have problems dealing with huge import, and we have to figure that out,” Cone also said.
The Ginebra mentor also pointed to their defense on Romeo and Stanley Pringle as a big key.
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The Kings employed no-nonsense defense from the get go, holding the Batang Pier to a 29-percent clip in the opening quarter and to an even worse 26-percent shooting in the second period.
Brownlee took on Romeo and limited the PBA reigning scoring champ to a 2-of-10 shooting as the Kings led 46-33 at the turn.
Aguilar nailed a bank shot and an uncontested jam then LA Tenorio drained a trey to highlight a run that opened a 40-26 spread for the Kings in the second period. (SB)
