NorthPort finally beat Ginebra after half a decade following a nail-biting 119-116 victory in front of a hostile crowd at the Philsports Arena in Pasig to maintain its lead in the PBA Season 49 Commissioner’s Cup on Wednesday night.
The Batang Pier nearly fell prey to the Kings’ NSD rally when it coughed up an 18-point lead and trailed, but unlikely blunders by Justin Brownlee in the closing moments enabled the youth-laden crew to escape the crowd darlings.
“It’s a statement win for us,” said head coach Bonnie Tan as his wards gave the franchise its first win over the Barangay since a 124-90 rout in Game 1 of their Governors’ Cup semifinal series back in December 14, 2019.
NorthPort drew inspired performances from its solid trio of Kadeem Jack, Arvin Tolentino, and Joshua Munzon in taking down the perennial contenders on the way to chalking up their seventh win in eight outings.
Jack finished with 32 points and 16 rebounds. Their main man dropped 29 points on six three-pointers and five rebounds before fouling out of the match with 2:02 left to play, while Munzon contributed 27 points and six assists.
All three made key plays down the stretch in the face of danger in a stupendous show of character for the Batang Pier that eventually paid off so nicely.
And luck, surely, had a part as well in the triumph, especially after Ginebra’s best player found himself committing costly errors down the stretch.
Brownlee made only two of the three potential game-tying free throws with 8.9 seconds to go that only cut the gap to 117-116, before failing to capitalize on the split of Munzon in an attempt to take matters into his own hands.
Brownlee tried to drive to the cup strongly but slipped all by himself, giving the ball back to NorthPort with only 2.3 seconds left to play.
Jack was fouled and went on to make his first free throw before purposely missing the second to run the clock down, sealing the triumph — and giving NorthPort newfound confidence that it can beat the big boys.
(C) PBA Images
“The question coming into this game is ‘yung status ng team kasi hindi kami nananalo sa big teams,” he offered. “But we hope na with this win, we proved that we’re here to win games, and we’re here to be competitive.”
Brownlee, though, still finished as Ginebra’s top scorer with 23 points and 12 rebounds but he struggled, as he shot just 6-of-22 from the field and committed eight of the team’s 22 turnovers in the defeat that dropped their card to 5-3.
Scottie Thompson, RJ Abarrientos, and Troy Rosario all had 17 points apiece as they fueled the comeback attempt that challenged their foes.
Rosario himself nailed the go-ahead putback slam off a Brownlee miss for the 101-100 lead with 7:07 remaining in the fourth quarter.
However, William Navarro was the stabilizing presence NorthPort needed, stringing together a triple and then a layup off a Rosario foul to give themselves the lead once again, 105-101, approaching the last six minutes.
Tolentino, Jack, and Munzon would make sure that they’d stay ahead for good with big hits, before the Batang Pier collectively showed steely resolve to finally take down a team that long tormented the ball club for five years.
The Scores:
NorthPort 119 – Jack 32, Tolentino 29, Munzon 27, Flores 9, Navarro 8, Bulanadi 5, Onwubere 4, Cuntapay 3, Yu 2, Nelle 0, Jalalon 0.
Ginebra 116 – Brownlee 23, Thompson 17, Rosario 17, Abarrientos 17, Ahanmisi 12, Holt 11, Cu 9, J.Aguilar 8, Tenorio 2.
Quarterscores: 31-27, 67-58, 98-87, 119-116.
