Barangay Ginebra goes for the crown
One more win, and Barangay Ginebra will finally end a long, lonely wait to be back in dreamland.
Three-to-two-games up and all pumped-up, the Kings go for the jugular versus the beleaguered Meralco side, taking their first of two cracks in winning the PBA Governors Cup crown Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
A win in the 7 p.m. match before another expected sellout crowd will bring the curtain down in PBA Season 41 with Ginebra on mountaintop.
The Kings seek to wrap up what has been a spectacle of a series riding the momentum of back-to-back wins in Games Four (88-86) and Five (92-81).
“We put our best game of the series together in Game Five and now our challenge is to follow it up and not give the momentum back to Meralco,” said Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
The league’s winningest coach is on line to win a 19th crown but he foresees a tough, tough resistance from the Bolts.
“We expect a big fight back by them. They’ve been an incredibly resilient team all conference long,” he said.
“It’s do or die so we must get off to a good start and match the energy of Ginebra right from the jump ball. At this point it’s about who wants it the most so we have to play the type of basketball that got us this far in the tournament. We must play our basketball now,” said Meralco coach Norman Black.
The Kings ended a series of gut-wrenching duels the last time, fashioning out a dominant wire-to-wire win in Game Five to move on the brink of a first crown in eight years.
If they’re able to close out the series, the Kings will match Toyota’s haul of nine championships – fifth best in the league after San Miguel Beer’s 22, Alaska Milk’s 14 and 13 apiece by Crispa and Star.
A concern for Cone was the way they blew leads in the series.
“It’s the first time we’re in the lead in the series. But we’re not good at holding leads in the whole series,” said Cone, recalling the 16-point spreads they squandered in yielding Game One (114-109 in overtime) and Game Three (107-103).
The Kings also blew huge bubbles in Games Two and Four, teetering on the brink in each game before
surviving to secure the win.
In Game Five, they saw a 21-point spread cut down to five entering the final minute of the contest.
And Cone insists Meralco just can’t be counted out.
“There is no doubt that Meralco is a great team. Their backs are to the wall. They’re a great team with their backs to the wall. It’s one thing if you’re playing a lesser team and they had their backs to the wall, you can kind of overcome them,” said Cone.
“But a great team with their backs to the wall – it’s really hard to beat,” he said. “They’re gonna be totally focused and concentrated, and we’re just gonna see if we can meet their intensity.”
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