INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines ? Nineteen of the 28 teams that won Game 5 from a 2-all tie went on to capture a best-of-seven title series in the Philippine Basketball Association.

That fact will be foremost in the minds of San Miguel Beer and Barangay Ginebra when they resume their quest of the Motolite-PBA Fiesta Cup Sunday at the Araneta Coliseum.

Mainly because they were the last team to win before the championship playoffs took a brief rest as the Big Dome became unavailable due to earlier bookings, the Beermen have the momentum and the slight edge in the 7 p.m. encounter.

But if the trend in the first four games holds true, the Gin Kings should prevail, having emerged on top in Games 1 and 3.

But Ginebra?s fate hinges on a large part on whether newly crowned Most Valuable Player JayJay Helterbrand would be 100 percent for the game.

Coach Jong Uichico opted to bench Helterbrand in the closing minutes of Ginebra?s 106-104 loss in Game 4 due to a recurring hamstring pull to reserve him for the crucial encounters ahead.

He will likely play tomorrow but he may not be as effective as before.

Uichico is also worried of the big edge in offensive rebounds by the Beermen, who had 24 in that department the last time against eight for the Kings. Musong R. Castillo