Justin Brownlee played his best game of the series to date to lead Ginebra in reducing the Governors’ Cup Finals to a virtual best-of-3 following a 106-92 Game 4 win on Sunday night at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
After losing another Best Import race to Rondae Hollis-Jefferson earlier in the night, the three-time awardee showed that there’s bigger fish to fry, buckling down to work right from the get-go on the way to finishing with 34 points.
He manufactured 15 of his output in just the first quarter to lead the Kings in seizing control early before building a 54-42 lead at the half, pushing the defending conference champions to play catch-up the rest of the way.
And he would be there, too, to shut the door on their long-time rivals, elevating for a two-handed jam with a minute left to play as the Barangay finished the game strongly with a 9-2 assault to foil their foes’ bid of building a 3-1 lead.
Brownlee shot an excellent 11-of-16 from the floor, including a pair of four-pointers and a troika of threes as the 36-year-old winger finally regained his old, deadly form after being held to below 20 points in the last two games.
“It was great to get a good rhythm,” said Brownlee, who also had six rebounds and four assists. “In the past two games, I haven’t had a good shooting touch but it felt great to just come out and be aggressive, and see some shots go in.”
Maverick Ahanmisi was impressive as well with 18 points and eight rebounds, bettering his fine play from Game 3 as he continues to thrive on an off-the-bench role in an adjustment that’s been working wonders for Coach Tim Cone.
He shot 6-of-9 from the field, highlighted by a four-pointer with 2:33 left in the game which proved to be the haymaker that took the fight out of TNT as it gave them the 101-90 lead and kick-started the aforementioned closing run.
Japeth Aguilar and Stephen Holt delivered 18 points apiece also, while Scottie Thompson chipped in 12 in the win witnessed by 16,783 fans — the largest since 54,589 attended Game 7 of the 2022-23 Commissioner’s Cup Finals.
“Everybody wants to win so badly,” said Cone. “It’s never just about making shots. It’s always about how much guys are going to defend, rebound, hustle. And that’s what we’ve been able to do in these last two games.”
Ginebra shot 56.3-percent from the field with an impressive 3-of-5 clip from 27 feet en route to hitting the century mark for the first time in the series.
It was actually a shootout between the Kings and the Tropang Giga with the latter shooting 54.1-percent of their shots. But they simply couldn’t stop the crowd darlings, particularly during closing time.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson led the Tropang Giga with 28 points and nine rebounds as he tried to will his side back especially in the second half.
Calvin Oftana submitted 26 points for his best outing of this series thus far, although the 28-year-old forward was left frustrated about the limited touches he had in the second half — that, after scoring 20 in the first half.
Rey Nambatac was the only other double-digit scorer for TNT with 15 as usual suspects Roger Pogoy and Poy Erram combined for only 12 points.
The Scores:
Ginebra 106 – Brownlee 34, Ahanmisi 18, J.Aguilar 18, Holt 18, Thompson 12, Abarrientos 5, Devance 1, Tenorio 0, Cu 0, Pinto 0.
TNT 92 – Hollis-Jefferson 28, Oftana 26, Nambatac 15, Castro 9, Pogoy 9, Erram 3Aurin 2, Heruela 0, Khobuntin 0, Williams 0.
Quarterscores: 30-25, 54-42, 85-77, 106-92.
