Justin Brownlee was a big reason why the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel managed to post an 11-point lead over the TNT KaTropa in the third quarter of their 2019 PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinal opener, Friday night.
The reigning Best Import already had 22 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field across three quarters.
During such a situation, Brownlee was expected to get going come the fourth quarter. He should have been applying the finishing touches to the 1-0 lead in their best-of-five series.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. And he has opposing import Terrence Jones to blame for that.
The former NBA cager – who is about five inches taller than Brownlee – decided to pick his counterpart on defense. The result? Brownlee only shot the basketball three times in the final period, while he only scored one point.
With Brownlee silenced, TNT came back from the deficit and walked away with the 95-93 victory.
Brownlee finished with 23 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists, five steals, and a block in nearly 48 minutes. Asked about being guarded by the much bigger Jones, the American cager admitted that he was a bit surprised with such.
“Just a little. We didn’t expect that and I didn’t either,” said Brownlee. “But as I said, he did a really good job.
“I didn’t expect that and just got to give a lot of credit to him because that could have been the difference-maker.”
But for Brownlee, the loss was beyond his limited performance. The three-time PBA champion said that he and the rest of the Barangay should limit their turnovers so that they can protect leads.
“I think turnovers, for sure, hurt us. We got out to a lead and I think we got a good rhythm and I know I made some turnovers,” said Brownlee, who committed four of the Gin Kings’ 19 turnovers that led to 20 points for TNT.
“I think if we can stay solid and not really give them second-chance opportunities or turn the ball over and they can get on their break, we can go ahead more instead of kind of a seesaw, back-and-forth [game],” he furthered.
“Just really [the] turnovers. Keep the turnovers down and try to really move the ball and focus on everybody getting involved.”
