Ginebra gave out an important lesson on keeping emotions in check especially in a stage as big as the 2023 PBA Governors’ Cup Finals as it beat TNT, 102-90, to take Game 1, Sunday night at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
The Kings couldn’t really pull away until Poy Erram practically became the reason behind the Tropang Giga’s downfall as he committed back-to-back fouls on counterpart Christian Standhardinger with 9:51 to go in the fourth quarter.
It was his last two fouls of the game and his premature exit would enlarge an already gaping hole at the center position for the flagship MVP Group franchise, who had lost Justin Chua minutes into the match due to a knee injury.
TNT paid dearly for it as Aljon Mariano, Jamie Malonzo, and Stanley Pringle enabled the reigning champions to seize control of the game for good on the way to gaining the head start in the series.
“They’re missing Kelly Williams, so without Kelly to back up Poy or Poy backing up Kelly, they have to go small against us and that causes problems for us in terms of matchups,” offered Ginebra head coach Tim Cone.”
“But it also causes problems for them as well. It’s basically whoever’s going to take advantage of that situation,” he furthered.
Game 2 is on Wednesday at 5:45 p.m. at the Big Dome, still, with the crowd darlings, of course, looking to establish a 2-0 lead in the race-ot-4 bout.
Justin Brownlee led Ginebra with 31 points, 17 of which he made in the first quarter alone to steer his side to a 29-20 lead, and 12 rebounds.
Malonzo finished with 21 points and eight rebounds, while BPC frontrunner Standhardinger tallied his own double-double with 16 and 11.
Reigning MVP Scottie Thompson finished with a triple-double with 10 points, 13 rebounds, and 11 assists, his eighth career trip-dub and fifth in the playoffs.
Pringle came off the bench and provided a surprise spark with his 11 markers, the most he’s had since scoring 10 in their final elimination round game against, coincidentally, TNT last March 17 albeit in a losing effort.
“I was not 100-percent sure if we were going to play well tonight, but the guys came out and they came out really fired up to start the game and it set a good tone in the beginning of the game,” said a proud Cone.
Leading TNT, on the other hand, was Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who finished with 30 points and 20 rebounds with five assists in the defeat.
Young guns Mikey Williams and Calvin Oftana backed him up with 23 and 16 markers, respectively as the two tried to pick it up on a night Roger Pogoy only scored six as his offense got compromised by the need to guard Brownlee.
The Scores:
Ginebra 102 – Brownlee 31, Malonzo 21, Standhardinger 16, Pringle 11, Thompson 10, Gray 6, Mariano 5, Pinto 2, David 0.
TNT 90 – Hollis-Jefferson 30, M.Williams 23, Oftana 16, Castro 4, Erram 4, Chua 3, Khobuntin 2, Montalbo 2, Ganuelas-Rosser 0, Varilla 0.
Quarterscores: 29-20, 50-43, 74-62,102-90.
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The 2023 PBA Governors Cup Finals is live-streamed on SMART Sports.
