Scottie Thompson and Jamie Malonzo came through with the biggest of baskets to help Barangay Ginebra upend Bay Area, 89-82, to take the 2-1 lead in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals, Wednesday night at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
The reigning MVP tipped the ball in off a broken play for the go-ahead bucket with 1:26 remaining and shortly after dished a key dime to the young winger for the booming triple to give the Kings the 84-79 lead with under a minute to go.
Justin Brownlee and LA Tenorio then made the most out of their opportunities from the line to apply the finishing touches and complete the comeback from 14 down — much to the delight of the partisan 15,000 fans in attendance.
“We said nothing is working today, nothing is working for us today. We’re not hitting shots, we’re making a lot of defensive mistakes. But we just gotta keep working,” offered head coach Tim Cone.
“We’re just looking for a spark. Justin upped his motor and Scottie went crazy and got a couple of unbelievable rebounds and we got on a roll. The crowd kept feeding us and feeding us,” added the owner of 24 titles.
Brownlee led the way with 34 points and 17 rebounds as he powered Ginebra’s fourth-quarter rally that saw him tie the game at 79-all with 2:12 left — a fadeaway to follow up the momentum-swinging triple by LA Tenorio moments prior.
The Best Import frontrunner scored 19 in the final period alone, which according to league stats chief Fidel Mangonon III are the most in a fourth quarter of a PBA Finals game since Chris McCullough also had 19 with San Miguel in 2019.
Christian Standhardinger supplied 15 points, 13 of which he made in the first half as he carried the fight for a Barangay side misfiring at that time.
Thompson notched his own double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Malonzo chimed in 10 markers and four boards in the victory.
Ginebra’s NSD DNA coming into play surely augured well as it enabled the crew to overcome their shooting struggles, where they only made 34-percent from the floor — including a measly 7-of-26 clip from beyond the arc.
The loss, on the other hand, wasted the 23-point, 24-rebound effort of Andrew Nicholson, although even more crushing for Bay Area is losing the former NBA cager to an ankle injury just with the game winding down to its last seconds.
Kobey Lam supplied 17 points, Zhu Songwei made 12 points, and Glen Yang and Hayden Blankley added 11 and 10 markers, respectively.
Game Four is on Friday at the same venue.
The Scores:
Ginebra 89 – Brownlee 34, Standhardinger 15, Thompson 14, Malonzo 10, Tenorio 8, Pringle 5, J.Aguilar 3, Mariano 0, Gray 0, Pinto 0.
Bay Area 82 – Nicholson 23, Lam 17, Zhu 12, Yang 11, Blankley 10, Ewing 3, Ju 2, Liu 2, Song 2, Reid 0.
Quarterscores: 16-16, 35-37, 56-63, 89-82
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The second game of each PBA gameday is live-streamed on SMART Sports.
