MANILA: Once again, the legend of Barangay Ginebra’s resiliency in times of adversity came to fore.
The Gin Kings, with a virtual sea of humanity as their ever-valuable sixth man, chewed away at a 16-point first half deficit and came back from 12 down in the third period to hammer out an 80-75 victory over Air21 and take the Fiesta Cup title series to the distance.
Chris Alexander scored 20 of his PBA career-high 37 points in the third quarter, almost single-handedly rallying the Kings in the period as Ginebra fought hard to live another day and stay in the hunt.
“You just leave it to the spirit of the Barangay Ginebra,” Ginebra coach Jong Uichico later told reporters. “We are walking wounded, but the heart is still there. It is the only thing that is keeping us in the series. Good things happen off of that.”
Alexander also finished with 24 rebounds, three steals and two blocks in what was his most overpowering performance in this series, making up for the absence of Jay-Jay Helterbrand and the handicap of playing with an injured Mark Caguioa. Caguioa, the team’s leading scorer, played with an obvious limp because of tendonitis in his knees. But the “Spark” still managed to make a dent by hitting a three-pointer to open up fourth quarter hostilities for the Kings and a 64-57 lead.
“I just have players that don’t want to give up,” Uichico added.
“If you believe that you can do it, then 50 percent of the battle is won already. It’s up to us to work on winning the other 50 percent.” A Game 7 would be a most fitting end to what has turned out to be a classic of a series, one that has drawn the crowd in all of its first six games.
Last night, more than 18,000 filled the Big Dome which netted the league an all-time mark of close to P2.5 million. Air21 opened up a 14-0 lead after the Kings missed their first six shots and committed three of their six first half turnovers in that span.
But instead of and rolling over and dying, the Kings summoned what was little left of them and methodically clawed their way back into the fight only to fall behind by 17-33 in the middle of the second period. That was when their strength of character again showed as the Kings, truly because of the no-tomorrow nature of the game for them, crept within three to close the first half by holding the Express to just 10 points in the period. The coup d’ grace came when they wound up the third with a 13-0 run as the Kings took a six-point lead into the fourth period before that Caguioa triple touched off spurts one after the other that kept the crowd roaring. Air21 then suffered a huge blow with 4:53 left when Steven Thomas was whistled for his sixth foul. But it wasn’t smooth sailing from there for the Kings as one might expect, as the Express stayed within striking distance. And that is exactly the reason why coach Bo Perasol still sounded optimistic despite the loss.
“I have to hand it down to Ginebra, they played a spirited game and never gave up,” Perasol said. “The beauty of winning Game 5 (on Friday) is that we still have a chance (of winning the title) on Wednesday. “Even if we lost Steven, we just lost by five, and that says a lot of how well we can play this team,” he added. Thomas still went on to lead the Express with 20 points and 19 rebounds.
The result of last night’s game really lay in the middle two quarters, where Air21 was held to just 28 points by the pesky Ginebra defense that met the ball carriers up high and Alexander challenging almost every shot inside. Gary David was held to a single point after the first three periods and Arwind Santos was blanked in the final two after scoring all of his 10 points in the first half.
