PBA IMAGES
Glen Rice Jr. put on a shooting clinic and Barangay Ginebra couldn’t do anything but watch.
Rice, the hot-shooting TNT import torched the Gin Kings with a game-high 36 points to lead the KaTropa to a 121-92 rout Saturday night.
The 26-year-old Rice hit six 3-pointers and at one point made four straight triples in a pivotal point in the third quarter, where TNT blew the game wide open.
“Man, that dude, he was unstoppable in the third quarter,” said Ginebra import Justin Brownlee.
Brownlee said the Kings had a defensive game plan laid out for Rice and it was to force the former Washington Wizard to shoot from the outside rather than make him put the ball on the floor and drive.
But Rice had the hot hand and when he started knocking down 3-pointer after 3-pointer, Ginebra didn’t have any answers for him.
He had 18 points alone in the third period.
“I knew what type of player he was. We had a certain way we wanted to guard him. We knew him driving to the basket would hurt our defense. Of course, we didn’t want to give up that many threes, but he made a lot of three-point shots and made it tough for us,” Brownlee, who topscored for the Kings with 28 points, said.
TNT clinched the first top four slot and Rice thinks the best is yet to come for the KaTropa.
“I think we’re just getting better and better. The longer we play together, really the better we gonna get. I just feel that we are where we wanna be. We’re playing some of our best basketball until the end of season.”