Sean Anthony strongly believes that his steal on Greg Slaughter late in the NorthPort-Ginebra game Saturday should have led to a fastbreak, not the referees blowing their whistles and calling a 24-second shot clock violation.
Anthony stripped the ball away from a spinning Slaughter with 36 ticks left and went on to bring the ball down the court to run the break, but it did not push through as the refs deemed that the shot clock already expired upon the steal.
“I felt I had the ball out of Greg’s hands in my possession before I heard the buzzer. Looking at the replay… It’s tough. My hands, I don’t know but it’s definitely out of Greg’s hands and he doesn’t have possession,” Anthony said.
“It could have been a four-on-one.”
Anthony, however, did not discredit the Gin Kings for pulling through in the end en route to the win — Justin Brownlee came up clutch for the Barangay, scoring five straight points to carry Ginebra from a 68-70 deficit with 2:12 to go.
“Give credit to Ginebra, they made plays down the stretch. Brownlee hit a tough three and stripped one of our guys — Brownlee made the plays down the stretch and we didn’t make our plays,” said the versatile forward.
“Credit to Brownlee and Ginebra for making the plays,” the nine-year pro admitted.
“Ginebra’s a great team. They’re the defending champs of this conference. We matched them pretty well and if a couple of calls or couple plays went our way, we could’ve come with it. But I thought we battled hard.”
However, the 33-year-old only has one wish, as the Batang Pier moves on from the loss — NorthPort will have tough assignments ahead as they will be facing the San Miguel Beermen and the Magnolia Hotshots, respectively.
“I just hope in some games, we’ll get some last-minute calls. It seems like they’re always going against us.”
