So the trend continues, and this best-of-seven series for the PBA Commissioner’s Cup has gone back to what it was forecast to be: A close one.
Scoring the first 17 points and keeping the pedal to the metal all of Friday night, Barangay Ginebra went on to blast San Miguel Beer to smithereens, 130-100, which makes Gin Kings coach Tim Cone all the more wary coming into the next game when they break a 2-2 tie at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“This was strange,” Cone said after the win, the fourth straight game that was decided by at least 25 points—extending the league Finals record—and one which the two-time Grand Slam champion said worries him the most. “This doesn’t make us secure coming into Game 5.
“If you think you won big that you’re going to win the next game, it scares me even more,” Cone went on. “It happened to us after Game 1.”
Ginebra’s hot start equaled the all-time longest unanswered start in a title series game record five times before, the last during Game 2 of last season’s Final Four when TNT KaTropa had a similar 17-0 start against San Miguel Beer.
The only difference was the Beermen rallied against the Texters and won. On Friday night, San Miguel didn’t even come close to putting a dent on that margin.
“It’s my turn to tell coach Tim ‘nice bawi,’” San Miguel coach Leo Austria said before blasting his charges for not having the drive in Game 4. “Before this game, he (Cone) kept telling me that we were too good for them and that we’re too strong. He now knows that that’s not true.”
Game 5 is Sunday also at the Big Dome in Cubao and both coaches acknowledge its importance, this now being a race-to-two.
“We will have sleepless nights and we will show them (players) the importance of the next game,” Austria said. “What was lacking was our effort and by effort, I mean outworking the opponent. We had a lot of that in Games 2 and 3.”
“This has been a strange series, never seen one and never been in one before,” Cone continued. “I think what happens is that you have two explosive teams and if you allow one team to get momentum, it’s hard to break because they are that good.
“So whoever grabs momentum keeps it rolling so far,” he said. “I’m kind of speechless here. I don’t know what to say about it.”
Meanwhile, June Mar Fajardo won a seventh straight Master Sardines Best Player of the Conference award—as expected.
Fajardo finished No. 1 in the statistical points race and got all 37 first place votes from the covering media.
Ginebra’s Justin Brownlee won the Best Import trophy, the first of his career.