Ginebra on Wednesday night saved its season by beating arch-rivals TNT in the 2020 PBA Governors’ Cup quarterfinals, and how fitting that it was witnessed by the largest crowd the league has drawn amidst the pandemic.
A total of 7,091 fans trooped to the SMART Araneta Coliseum and, as expected, the majority of which were ka-Barangays, who all went home surely with big smiles on their faces after seeing their team register the 104-92 victory.
Head coach Tim Cone was glad to have played before such a big crowd, which he said brought a “huge difference” in favor of the reigning champs.
“It makes a huge difference for us, no doubt about it,” he said. “They are a special group. They show up every game and they cheer us on, and whether we’re up or down, they still continue to cheer us. Truly a special group.
“And it lends to us, it really does. From a coaching standpoint, I don’t hear it very much until I watch the replay and I hear it on the TV because I’m trying to narrow my focus on what we’re doing. But I know the players feel it.”
It did fire the Gin Kings up, so much so that it enabled them to start the game out strong and finish the first quarter with a 28-14 lead.
And when the opposition fought back from 19 down and threatened in the endgame, the pro-Ginebra crowd made sure to give their crew the extra jolt to finish the game strongly to eventually keep their title defense alive.
Behind Justin Brownlee, Scottie Thompson, and Japeth Aguilar, the Barangay unfurled a 10-2 run to turn a precarious two-point lead to 100-90 with 1:21 left on the way to sending the series to a rubber match on Saturday.
“Sometimes I watch our guys, and they’re playing at such a high level and I wonder, ‘Why are they playing at such a high level?’ Well, it’s the crowd. The crowd’s forcing them to play at that level,” offered Cone.
“So yeah, it’s truly a benefit for us, and we’ve really missed him over the last couple years. We really, really have,” he added.
As important as that win was, however, Cone said that he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, for Ginebra hasn’t done anything but to stay afloat.
“I don’t want to make too big of a deal about this game. It’s just a game, one game. All we did was even out the odds,” he offered.
“They had the overwhelmingly big odds coming into this series, and now we’ve kind of halved those odds. They’re still the favorites.”
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