MANILA: Rey Guevarra leapt over several people for the third straight year and Terrence Romeo shot the lights out yet again and enshrined themselves as all-time greats in the PBA’s All-Star Week side events.
Guevarra won the Slam Dunk title yet again, while Romeo repeated as the Three-Point Shootout king as the duo grabbed the limelight in the appetizer for the All-Star Game witnessed by a very lean crowd on Friday night at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
The Meralco swingman Guevarra nipped rookie teammate Chris Newsome for the honor, with his second dunk — leaping over former Letran college buddy Raymund Almazan and Jericho Cruz of Rain or Shine for a tomahawk slam – giving him a total of 97 points and a one-point win over Newsome.
“It was the hardest I ever worked for (in the contest) in three years,” Guevarra said in Filipino as Newsome gave him all he could handle. “It was fun, it was for the fans and we had a great time.”
Guevarra’s second dunk was just a slight improvement of his effort in the first, where he jumped over a fan while getting an assist from Barangay Ginebra rookie Scottie Thompson for the throw down.
His win made Guevarra just the second man in the history of the competition to win the Slam Dunk title at least three times. Only KG Canaleta, who won it five straight and was gracious enough to be one of the judges, has won it more.
The Three-Point Shootout was far more exciting, though, with Romeo pushed to the limit by Canaleta of Mahindra and RJ Jazul of Alaska.
In what could go down as one of the most formidable fields in the history of the competition, Romeo stood out in the end, tallying 20 points in the final round to clip Canaleta and Jazul, who both wound up with 17.
“I was nervous the whole time,” Romeo, the leading local scorer of GlobalPort which is so far winless in the Governors’ Cup, told reporters. “They (Canaleta and Jazul) are very capable of winning the event and it was just such a relief for me.
“It was a great competition,” added Romeo.
Romeo qualified second for the finals after shooting 24 points in the preliminaries.
Canaleta, who evolved into one of the league’s finest shooters after doing away with his high-flying act in recent years, however, topped qualifying with an all-time record 26 points but sputtered ever so slightly in the final round to fall short.
“I was holding my breath when KG was (shooting) his last rack,” Romeo said as Canaleta had a chance to turn things around being the final shooter.
Jeric Fortuna was the only defending champion dethroned during the day, falling in the preliminaries of the Obstacle Challenge won by Rain or Shine rookie Maverick Ahanmisi over Carlo Lastimosa of Blackwater.
Ahanmisi clocked 32.95 seconds, while Lastimosa, who knocked out GlobalPort’s Fortuna in the first round, timed 34.11 for the event.
Picked as the third choice overall in the last Draft, Ahanmisi became the tallest player to win the event at just over 6-foot-2.
The centerpiece North vs South game will be played Sunday at 7 p.m. also at the fabled Big Dome floor.
Guevarra, Romeo reassert supremacy in PBA’s All-Star Week side events
Guevarra, Romeo reassert supremacy in PBA’s All-Star Week side events
