MANILA, 6 February 2006 — Ironic as it is, a point guard also rose to the occasion last night and made sure that the piece of comeback history that Barangay Ginebra gloriously wrote 15 years ago will stay as such.
Celino Cruz, Red Bull’s unheralded court general, stepped up big time in the crunch and led the Barako to an 83-79 Game 7 win over the Gin Kings and straight into the PBA Fiesta Conference title playoffs. The 5-foot-9 Cruz scored five points, pulled down the most critical rebound of the game and had one block in a 10-4 closing run as Red Bull wrapped up its classic semifinal series with the Kings at 4-3.
It was also a guard — the retired Rudy Distrito — who capped a scorching Ginebra run in the 1991 First Conference that had the Robert Jaworski-coached squad becoming the only team in league history to rally from 1-3 down and win a best-of-seven series.
The Red Bull franchise’s fourth Finals stint will have the Barako colliding with Purefoods starting Wednesday in another best-of-seven series. The Chunkee Giants closed out their own semifinal series with Air21 on Friday, 4-2.
“I was given a chance and I just made the most out of it,” Cruz said in Filipino, moments after his heroics silenced a huge and noisy pro-Ginebra crowd at the Araneta Coliseum.
Ginebra had taken a 75-73 lead after Chris Porter scored on a breakaway slam heading into the final 1:25, capping a long uphill battle that had the Kings rallying from deficits of as many as 13 points at one time in the third period. Cruz then nailed a three-pointer after coming out of a timeout and James Penny came out of his stupor somewhat to hit one of his own and a free throw that restored a five-point Red Bull lead.
After the Kings had come within two, Jay-Jay Helterbrand’s jumpshot from the right quarter court was short and wide, and Cruz snared the rebound before getting fouled.
Cruz’s two free throws with 1.6 seconds left sealed the all-important win in the Barako’s third and final try. Red Bull had taken a 3-1 lead with monumental come-from-behind victories in Games 3 and 4 and looked primed to putting a short end to the series. But true to Ginebra’s never-say-die spirit, this batch of Kings clawed their way back into the fight with close victories in the next two games to be in that position of duplicating the 1991 record.
