MANILA: There wasn’t a time last night when San Miguel’s mind looked like it wasn’t in the game — and Barangay Ginebra felt it in a bad way.
Focused right from the start, the Beermen mangled the defending champion Gin Kings black-and-blue, scoring a 95-78 victory that leveled the best-of-seven series for the Fiesta Cup at 1-all at the Araneta Coliseum.
“I really wouldn’t say that we dominated it, I think the players just came out more mentally prepared (for this game),” San Miguel coach Siot Tanquingcen said in comparing their effort to their series-opening loss.
“It was a close game more than the score showed,” he continued. “Basically, our defense was able to slow them down. They didn’t shoot as hot (compared to) the first game.”
And what was supposed to be a ho-hum ending after San Miguel showed utter dominance became ugly when Ginebra players threw uncalled for elbows and San Miguel aces Danny Ildefonso and Marc Pingris charging into the stands to confront a fan.
Olsen Racela suffered a badly-bruised right cheekbone courtesy of a second motion by Ronald Tubid and Cyrus Baguio decked Dondon Hontiveros with a wayward forearm, instances of physicality that came inside the final two minutes and the outcome already beyond doubt.
It got uglier when Ildefonso and Pingris charged courtside fan Ferdinand Nervades, a 40-year-old businessman from Malabon who reportedly shouted profanities at San Miguel’s Jay Washington in the endgame.
Both players have been summoned to a 10 a.m. conference by commissioner Renauld Barrios.
That incident almost took the beauty out of the San Miguel victory, which was so convincing after Gabriel Freeman scored 23 points and grabbed 17 rebounds while getting help from three locals who turned in double figures.
Pingris was brilliant in the stretch, scoring 10 straight points highlighted by two three-point plays as the Beermen put the game to bed with an 81-70 lead heading into the final eight minutes.
San Miguel didn’t stop there, as Hontiveros nailed a triple with 2:40 left for a 90-76 lead as the Beermen eventually held Ginebra, a 102-96 Game 1 winner, to its lowest output this conference. Jay-Jay Helterbrand paced the Kings with 15 points but was held to just two in the fourth quarter, where Ginebra actually scored just 14 points.
Ginebra dug itself a grave by resorting too much on the three-point shot, where the Kings took 38 attempts and made only 12. They got badly beaten off the boards, 40-57 and scored 19 second chance points.
Game 3 is scheduled tomorrow also at the Big Dome, and Ginebra coach Jong Uichico took the beating with a grain of salt and bowed to bounce back.
“On Sunday, our mindset will be the same, and that is to grind every game,” Uichico said. “I hope that we get rewarded (for our hard work). We’ve got to do a better job off the boards and not turn the ball over too much.
“San Miguel will score, but if we don’t give them any easy points, we’ll be in striking distance,” he said.
“I expect the third game to be the same way (physically),” Tanquingcen said when asked of what he thought of the rugged endgame play. “Coach Jong is going to figure out ways to counter what we are doing, slow us down.
“We have to be ready for whatever they come up with,” Tanquingcen added. “As the series gets longer, emotions are going to get higher. It’s really hard to tell.”
Meanwhile, Helterbrand earlier became the third man in league history to repeat as the Best Player of the Conference winner after besting Arwind Santos of Burger King and three other notable candidates.
Helterbrand, Ginebra’s 6-foot firebrand, tallied 1,357 points after winning out in the media and players’ votes categories and finishing a close second to Santos in the statistical points race.
His victory put him in elite company, as he joined retired former San Miguel ace Nelson Asaytono and Danny Ildefonso as the only players ever to successfully win the accolade in the same tournament for two straight years.
Asaytono, who now works in the security detail of a mayor in a southern province, picked up his awards in the 1997 and 1998 All-Filipino, while Ildefonso won five straight BPC during the time he dominated the league in 2001-2002. Ildefonso also won his two Most Valuable Player trophies in that rampage.
