MANILA, 26 January 2006 — As hot as he was feeling, a flu-stricken James Penny scorched Ginebra with two killer treys in the stretch to lift Red Bull to an 86-83 victory over the Gin Kings that leveled their PBA Fiesta Conference semifinal series at one game each.
Penny’s hands sizzled and he took over at the crunch by actually scoring eight straight points that saved the Barako from falling 0-2 down and giving Red Bull the psychological edge heading into the crucial third game of the best-of-seven series tomorrow.
“I got open looks and I just had to take them,” said the 6-foot-5 Penny, who was nursing the flu since Tuesday morning.
Penny rallied the Barako, who fell behind, 74-79 with 3:43 left, after Rodney Santos completed a three-point play off Celino Cruz, first by hitting a difficult fallaway from deep left corner that came after Cruz redeemed himself with a triple of his own for 79-all. And when Eric Menk hit a basket inside for Ginebra and Chris Porter added a free throw for 82-79, Penny came up with his heroics, the second triple taken in a nonchalant manner from way, way out that hit nothing but net for 85-82 with 57.3 left.
“I guess the difference between Game One and this one was that we worked a little harder,” Red Bull’s Yeng Guiao said.
Guiao, however, did not mince words in berating the officiating. The fiery coach even went on to say that his team will officially ask the Commissioner’s Office to review the game tape because of the so many calls that went against Barako.
Penny, who was a teammate of Porter for two years in the Continental Basketball Association with the Oklahoma Storm, was actually averaging only 16% from three-point land on 3-of-19 shooting for the tournament before he took those shots.“The important thing is I made them, and I have bragging rights with Chris at the moment,” the former Texas Christian University standout said.
Purefoods, meanwhile, made the most out of a crucial mental error by Ren-Ren Ritualo to escape with an 88-87 decision against Air21 that gave the Chunkee Giants a 2-0 lead in their own Final Four series. Marquin Chandler hit the winning basket with 12.5 ticks left and the Express then bungled two opportunities to turn the game around to fall into a 0-2 hole only 86% of all teams have come back from in the past.
The Express had taken an 87-86 lead after Wynne Arboleda drained a three-pointer that beat the shot clock and Shawn Daniels split his charities in the next Air21 possession going into the final minute of the physical contest.
It seemed that Air21 had sealed the deal, when Arboleda stripped Roger Yap of possession in the next Purefoods offensive and a streaking Ritualo being fed an outlet pass.
But the leading local scorer for Air21 faked a drive into the baseline and was effectively botched by Chandler, who forced the Air21 guard to pop a pass that was intercepted by Yap and which the Giants eventually converted courtesy of Chandler. Chandler wound up with 29 points, 19 rebounds, three blocks and one technical foul after getting into an altercation with the De Ocampo brothers Yancy and Ranidel with 5:38 left that again caused a slight delay.
