Matthew Wright’s sharpshooting was so on-point that it took down the whole Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, Saturday night.
The Gin Kings appeared to be well on their way to snatching the game away from Phoenix Pulse. They rallied back from 23 down and tied the game up at 101 with 12.5 seconds left to play.
Unfortunately, Wright was there to spoil those plans.
The Fil-Canadian guard pulled up from the baseline and launched a jumper. The cheers from the pro-Ginebra crowd suddenly turned to silence as his shot went in, returning the lead to the Fuel Masters with only 5.1 ticks on the clock.
Justin Brownlee tried to win it for the Barangay, but his deep three missed. Phoenix Pulse won, 103-101.
“I guess instinct takes over in those last couple of seconds. You just want to get the ball and get to your spot,” said Wright, who had 28 points, of his shot.
“It’s always good beating Ginebra, it’s a confidence boost for the guys.”
Despite the delight in taking down one of the conference favorites, it isn’t lost on Wright that they mismanaged their great start into the match where they had 41 points in the first alone, which allowed them to post a 23-point lead.
With that, the three-year pro then hopes that they can be more mature when handling these situations next time.
“It wasn’t ideal — we were up by a lot of points. To be honest, we can’t let that happen again. We scored forty-one points in the first quarter and we let up. You can’t do that against a good team like Ginebra — the crowd really helped them get back,” said the fifth-year pro.
“We had a couple of miscues on defense, I feel like we could have been sharper down the stretch. We just tried to not lose instead of trying to win, you know what I mean? I think we need to be a lot more mature in those crucial moments.”
