Ginebra pulls away in final half for 116-103 victory over Stars

MAIN MAN: Barangay Ginebra's Justin Brownlee drives around Joel Wright of Stars. (PBA Media Bureau photo)

MANILA: Needing to come up with its trademark comeback early, Barangay Ginebra won this one pulling away.
The Gin Kings worked hard to overhaul a 17-point second quarter deficit and then put in their skates in the final half to hammer Star, 116-103, to clinch a playoff seat in the PBA Governors’ Cup before an animated throng of more than 16,000 at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
Justin Brownlee kept the Gin Kings in the thick of the fight in the first half with 23 of his 38 points, before the rest of the team helped him out in the last two quarters as Ginebra improved to 6-2 and caught idle giant-killer Mahindra in second spot at 6-2.
The win not only assured Ginebra of advancing past the eliminations, it also kept the league’s top draw solidly in the running for a place in the top four as Greg Slaughter, the Kings franchise player, makes his first appearance in their next game, which will be interestingly enough, against the Enforcers in less than two weeks.
Star jumped out of the gates hard and threatened to leave Ginebra behind with leads that ballooned to as large as 49-32.
But it only awakened a sleeping giant as Ginebra, after pulling even late in the third period, left the Hotshots dumbfounded and erected margins of as large as 19 that seaed Star’s fourth straight loss in a 1-6 card.
While Ginebra is now assured of playing past this round, the future has become more uncertain for Star, with coach Jason Webb still failing to find a solution to what has now become the Hotshots’ fumbling finish almost every game.
“We were a little bit shellshocked at how they played us early,” Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone told reporters. “But after the shock wore off, and after we righted the ship somewhat, the game got a lot easier for us.
“I was tearing my hair out in the first half,” he said as he tried to find the combinations that would click with only Brownlee hitting his mark.
Signs of things turning sour for Star started appearing late in the second, as the Hotshots were forced to settle for a 58-50 lead after establishing that 17-point cushion with less than five minutes left in the second period.
Ginebra then limited the Hotshots to just 18 points in the third and dropped 28 of its own, taking the driver’s seat into the fourth quarter before taking the first of several 19-point leads with under four minutes to play.
“Justin (Brownlee) carried us in the first half and everybody kind of chipped in in the second (half),” Cone explained after Brownlee also contributed eight rebounds and played it cool by refusing to let Star’s Joel Wright get into his head.
“If Justin wasn’t there (in the first two quarters), we would have been down 25 (points) at halftime. We were happy being down by eight at halftime,” Cone went on. “We broke their spirit (with the third quarter rally) and we carried it to the end.”
Wright scored 14 points in the first quarter and jumpstarted the Star offense. He even tried heckling Brownlee several times.
But Brownlee and the Kings had the last laugh, and dealt Wright and the Hotshots the lost that could sting the most in the end.
Meanwhile, Alaska got back in the playoff hunt earlier in the night after routing a walking wounded Blackwater side, 107-87.
LeDontae Henton scored 33 points and had eight rebounds in just three quarters as the Aces found the Elite easy foes to conquer, leading by as large as 30 points to jack up their record to 3-5.
The loss was the sixth straight for the 1-7 Elite, who played without import Eric Dawson, starting center JP Erram, Mike Cortez and Reil Cervantes, who were nursing different injuries.
Blackwater, though, will bring in a new import for its last three games in a last-ditch effort to make the playoffs. Management, however, refused to reveal the name of the man who will replace Dawson.
In a related development, San Miguel Beer, which dropped to fourth spot because of the Ginebra win, has signed up Michael Singletary to take the place of the injured Arizona Reid.
Singletary played for defunct Barako Bull in 2013.