MANILA, 5 February 2007 — Barangay Ginebra is going to the place where it was built to go.
San Miguel, its powerhouse sister team, just couldn’t keep in step.
The Gin Kings came back from 10 points down last night and clipped Talk ‘N Text, 98-89, to seal their expected appearance in the PBA Philippine Cup Finals before a virtual sea of humanity at the Araneta Coliseum.
But the title series made in heaven will have to wait - if it will ever come at all - after Red Bull nipped the Beermen, 104-100 later, to forge a deciding Game 7 in their separate semifinal series.
Rudy Hatfield, the biggest catch in a one-sided trade with Coca-Cola during the off-season, tossed in 28 points to lead Ginebra, which wrapped up its Final Four series with the rock-solid Phone Pals, 4-2.
Down, 47-57 in the second period, the Kings dropped a telling 20-6 bomb to forge ahead, never getting threatened again by a Talk ‘N Text side that missed the Finals yet again despite one of the strongest lineups on paper.
“I’m just feeling a little emotional right now, going back to the Finals with another team,” Jong Uichico, who took over the reins of the Kings before the start of the year, said.
And just when most of the more than 18,000 people rooted for San Miguel in the second game, Red Bull had other plans.
The Barako survived the ejection of coach Yeng Guiao in the first half of another highly-physical contest, coming back from as many as 13 points down in the fourth period to hammer out the win and make it 3-3.
Game 7 is scheduled for Wednesday.
Guiao was tossed out after incurring two technicals in a 20-second span, but this did not hinder the Barako’s resolve to push the series into a you-or-me contest with Celino Cruz, the smallest guy on the floor, doing most of everything.
Deputy Gie Abanilla called the shots in Guiao’s absence and passed the test with the brightest of flying colors.
The 5-foot-9 guard scored seven of his team-high 19 points inside the final 3:10 and grabbed the most important rebound of the night inside the land of the giants to preserve the win for Red Bull.
“What comes to my mind right now is Divine Justice,” Guiao later told reporters. “My players vindicated me. It’s their warrior spirit that bailed us out.”
The technicals were handed to Guiao after he had bumped into Dondon Hontiveros of San Miguel near the Red Bull bench late in the second period. A contact which the Red Bull coach said was accidental and a scene which Hontiveros, Guiao claimed, did a perfect acting job to execute. Pido Jarencio, the San Miguel assistant coach and Guiao’s former player at the defunct Sarsi squad, rushed to the Red Bull bench to confront Guiao and nearly triggered a melee. He was also given a technical foul.
That was the second time in the conference that the mercurial Red Bull coach had gotten into a hot verbal altercation with a member of the opposing team’s staff, the first in Tacloban when he and Frankie Lim, the Talk ‘N Text manager, were both tossed out of the game and fined a total of P115,000. Cruz also wound up with five rebounds and shot a hot 6-of-8 from the floor, his three-pointer with 3:10 remaining giving the Barako the lead to stay.
Danny Seigle led the Beermen with 22 points despite a consistent defensive blanket thrown at him. He, too, got into a verbal tussle with Red Bull guard Junthy Valenzuela in the middle of the fourth which stopped play for a while.
