The San Miguel Beermen’s Chris Ross believes that he did not deserve the technical fouls he was slapped with, late in Game Two of their 2018 Commissioner’s Cup Finals series with Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, Sunday night.
With five minutes left in the bout, the floor general was assessed with two technical fouls in a span of 15 seconds – first from continuous complaining, and the second due to taunting after a spat with Joe Devance.
The two technical fouls led to Ross’ automatic ejection. The 6-foot-1 guard exited the match without any points, but he was able to collect five assists, three rebounds, and two steals against two turnovers and two fouls.
“I don’t think I deserve them,” he asserted.
“But the refs called them so I’ll live with it.”
Ross won’t be thinking of those technical fouls for long, though, as his Beermen managed to overcome all the tension and dismantled the crowd darlings, 134-109, to send the best-of-seven series back to square one.
This was a perfect response to their lackadaisical showing back in the series opener last Friday, where they lost hugely, 99-127, no thanks to Justin Brownlee and the Gin Kings’ impeccable shooting from the floor.
“They played like it was a Finals Game and we played like it was a tune-up. We corrected that, and [Renaldo] Balkman kinda pumped us up yesterday in practice, and the coaches made the adjustments and it worked,” said Ross.
The victory saw six Beermen score in double figures, with Alex Cabagnot leading the pack with 33 points. But for the reigning Best Player of the Conference, what really stood out in the win was their defense.
After allowing Ginebra to shoot an excellent 61 percent from the floor back in Game One, San Miguel let their opponents convert just 48 percent of their shots on Sunday evening. Moreover, San Miguel forced Ginebra into 19 errors.
Crucially, the Beermen limited the streaky Brownlee to just 29 points. It may still be huge, but it was a notable difference from the 42 he scored back in the opener – a game where he only missed twice in the 19 shots he took.
“That was one of the best games we played all conference, I’m not even looking at offense, defensively we were right there. Offensively, we know we can score but defense is what wins championships,” said the nine-year pro.
“Defensively, we were definitely at our best, everyone was locked in.”
