Justin Brownlee had to be sent to the hospital as he suffered a severe case of food poisoning hours prior to Game 5 of the PBA Governors’ Cup Finals.
The three-time Best Import actually managed to suit up for the Kings in the crucial match Wednesday night at the SMART Araneta Coliseum, but could no longer push himself that he headed to the dugout early in the third quarter.
Visibly weary from the bench, he was accompanied by a couple of team staffers on the way to the locker room and never came back to the game. He exited with 14 points, four rebounds, a steal, and a block — all in the first half.
The reigning champions still put up a fight but the all-Filipino crew could only do so much as they bowed to TNT, 104-95, going down 3-2 in the series.
Justin Brownlee heads back to the Ginebra dugout as he’s reportedly suffering from food poisoning. No word yet if he’d be able to come back into the game#PBAonSmart
@justinebacnis/ Tiebreaker Times pic.twitter.com/ma92n8701s
— Tiebreaker Times (@tiebreakertimes) April 19, 2023
“He tried to go through the first half. He did a pretty good job, but by halftime, he was out,” said head coach Tim Cone. “When we started the second half. He was throwing up at halftime, he was throwing up on the bench, we took him out.
“Now, he’s been taken to the hospital. Maybe that’s something that we probably should have done before the game even started,” added the champion mentor. “He wanted to come and try and so he tried, but it wasn’t enough.”
Brownlee tried the best he could to play in the crucial affair despite his condition, helping out in their fiery second-quarter rally en route to a 15-point lead to eventually head into the halftime break owning a 61-49 advantage.
His exit, however, was an opportunity that the Tropang Giga exploited, hiking the game’s pace to get ahead and take control of the game in the third.
Yet the crowd darlings didn’t allow their rivals to pull away. Behind Nards Pinto, they cut the deficit to just one twice approaching the final three minutes.
But that’s when the team missed Brownlee a lot as Ginebra lost a big presence on both ends that sure knows how to close matches out.
“Bottom line is, we made some turnovers down the stretch,” lamented Cone. “We couldn’t rebound without Justin there, and that’s the story of the game. We got to be better with more poise down the stretch.”
The Kings are now in a precarious spot — the first time the club is down 3-2 in a Finals series under Cone — and they would definitely need their reinforcement back, and so they hope he’d recover in time for Game 6 on Friday.
“Hopefully Justin will be better after being in the hospital. We’ll see. It’s really severe food poisoning. We have 48 hours for him to get back,” he said.
—
The 2023 PBA Governors Cup Finals is live-streamed on SMART Sports.
