“Kapag dikit kompiyansa akong mananalo kami dahil kapag close game namin kami ang nananalo,” explained Agustin.
His intuition was proven right when his Beermen made all the right plays in the last 16 seconds to come out an 89-86 winner and finally wrap the best-of-seven series up, 4-2.
Arwind Santos finished with a game-high 25 points and joined hands with Jay Washington and Paul Artadi in giving the Beermen the needed push in the endgame. Prior to the game, SMB has won three previous close ones over the Kings, including a two-point decision in the series opener.
“It’s a great, great team effort today,” said Washington, who wound up with 12 points and a game-high15 rebounds in the final game of the series the whole team did not want to get extended.
“For us, this was Game 7,” said Washington. “We were not trying to play another game against Ginebra. For us this is our do-or-die.”
Ginebra, which averted an early exit with a 102-76 win in Game 5 last Friday, again fought tooth and nail. In the end, however, the Kings did not display the same poise the Beermen had and thus officially wound up third.
The Beermen, on the other hand, are gunning for their 19th title in their 32nd finals appearance overall when they battle early qualifier Talk N Text.
The opener of the race-to-four finals is set Saturday in Victorias City, the first time in more than 10 years a championship series game is being played out-of-town.
“Sa Talk N Text hind kami dapat mag-relax,” said SMB coach to Agustin. “Meron silang speed and quickness kaya kailangan maging ready kami.”
Mark Caguioa scored 21 points and Ronald Tubid 19. But the two were amply covered in the wind-up plays, forcing the Kings to look elsewhere for the much-needed points. For a while, the ploy worked.
Eric Menk capped an 11-point, six-rebound night with a three-point play in the last 38.1 seconds to tie the game for the 14th and last time at 85. But he turned out to be the goat after Washington’s putback of a Danny Ildefonso airball gave SMB a two-point lead.
Challenging Washington anew, Menk did not see the help defense by Paul Artadi, who tapped the ball away.
Santos then capped his heroics by snking a charity off Menk’s foul and then anticipated an intentional miss by Caguioa on the tailend of his charities to again go to the striper and practically seal it with another freebie, only 3.7 ticks left.
“Di gumive up ang mga players. Kahit underdog kami sa mga fans, we stayed focused,” said Agustin.
Tubid scored 12 of his points in the third quarter, fuelling Ginebra’s drive from a 51-58 deficit and into a 67-all count going into the fourth period.
Danny Seigle scored nine straight points, helping SMB battle back from a 32-38 deficit, before Racela boomed in a triple that gave the Beermen a 46-45 edge at the end of a testy first half that had players from both teams showcasing their desire in more concrete forms.
Cabagnot and Caguioa had some heated verbal exchanges that resulted in both players getting slapped with a technical foul each. Washington and Hatfield separately followed suit, also for the same offense.
Those early infractions did little to diminish the beauty of the game that saw each of the protagonists going through some ebbs and flows through separate players.
Caguioa already had nine points in the first period but it was Cortez who stoked Ginebra’s drive to as high as a 28-19 spread.
The scores:
San Miguel 89 - Santos 25, Hontiveros 17, Washington 12, Cabagnot 11, Seigle 8, Artadi 6, Ildefonso 4, Racela 3, Pena 3, Salvacion 0, Pennisi 0.
Ginebra 86 - Caguioa 21, Tubid 19, Hatfield 12, Menk 11, Cortez 10, Villanueva 7, Intal 2, Wilson 2, Miller 2, Wilson 0, Aquino 0.
Quarters: 23-28, 46-45, 67-67, 89-86
SOURCE: www.snowbadua.com
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