MANILA: Just like in his celebrated fight against the American Floyd Mayweather less than two weeks ago, Manny Pacquiao and his KIA Motors crew came tantalizingly close on this one, too.

Orlando Johnson hit some of the game’s most critical shots on Wednesday night and led Barangay Ginebra in dodging the upset axe against the Pacquiao-inspired Carnival, 105-98, for the Gin Kings’ breakthrough win in the PBA Governors’ Cup eliminations at the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay.

Johnson, who came into the game averaging a league-best 48 points, finished with 47 and 17 rebounds and got a lot of help from Mark Caguioa and Josh Urbiztondo in the stretch as the Gin Kings, undermanned and all, won for the first time in three games.

Their heroics also put to naught the superlative effort of 5-foot-7 KIA guard LA Revilla , who almost singlehandedly carried the Carnival on his shoulders on the night Pacquiao made an appearance infront of his PBA fans.

Pacquiao, the eight-division world champion whose right arm was in a sling, entered the venue with 7:36 left in the second quarter and almost made the game ground to a halt.

Fans chanted his name while coming up with a resounding applause.

His entrance, though, did not only inspire his Carnival into working doubly hard, but Johnson as well as the Ginebra import scored the next seven points for the Gin Kings which turned a 31-33 deficit into a 38-33 lead.

Ginebra would go on to close the half at 49-42, with Johnson finishing with 21 at the end of the second period alone.

KIA, though, fought even harder after coming out of the halftime break, and was on the verge of authoring another mammoth reversal only for imports Hamady Ndiaye and Jet Chang to bungle crucial charities when the Carnival needed them the most.

“We were just looking for our first win, regardless of who we were playing,” Ginebra’s Frankie Lim said of the first win of his pro coaching career. “It was just a great effort by my players.”

Ginebra pounded out the win even with the continued absence of Japeth Aguilar, Chris Ellis and the 7-foot Greg Slaughter, whose condition will be evaluated by team physicians again this week.

Aguilar remains day-to-day, though Lim in hopeful that the 6-foot-9 leaper would be able to suit up when the Kings slug it out with winless Blackwater on Saturday in Dipolog City.

Monfort scored on a fastbreak layup with 45.6 seconds remaining that ushered the Gin Kings to the lead for good 99-97, before Johnson canned two free throws off Alex Nuyles to seal the deal going into the final 29.7.

Ndiaye and Chang missed two free throws each in succession and sandwiching that sequence was a miserable effort by Chang in taking a three-point attempt that hit absolutely nothing as Ginebra took a 96-92 lead.

Revilla scored 14 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, with a left-handed layup with 2:12 to play putting the Carnival within 94-96.

Caguioa then had a split from the free throw line off Ndiaye’s fifth foul before Carl Dejesa forged the game’s last tie at 97 with a triple going into the final 1:23.

Meanwhile, NLEX also broke into the win column and tied the Gin Kings after scoring a 91-84 decision of sister squad Meralco in the first game.

Hardworking American import Kwame Alexander fired 29 points and had 17 rebounds and the veteran Asi Taulava tossed in 20 that went with 10 boards as the Road Warriors punished the Bolts underneath to rise to 1-2.

The loss was the second also in three games for Meralco, which got 44 points from Andre Emmet and 18 from Asian import Seiya Ando, who arrived Monday night to take the place of Jeff Koochoie.