Back in the finals

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A look up and down Barangay Ginebra’s roster reveals a squad that should have been competing for championships this season. Instead, it took a series victory over a banged-up foe to avert what could have been a season of futility for one of the league’s loaded squads.

The Gin Kings picked apart the remains of the NorthPort Batang Pier, fashioning a 120-107 victory in Friday’s Game 4 that was as close as it could get in a series of routs to book a Finals berth in the PBA Governors’ Cup at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Ginebra closed out the best-of-five semifinal duel, 3-1.

But even Ginebra coach Tim Cone admitted that NorthPort’s injury woes left it a stripped down version of the team that pulled off the conference’s biggest upset—a quarterfinal takedown of No. 1 NLEX.

Already without star rookie Robert Bolick (torn ACL), the Batang Pier soldiered on this series without veteran guard Sol Mercado, forward Kevin Ferrer and other serviceable bigs who could have helped narrow the talent disparity between the two clubs.“Sol takes care of the defensive end and Kevin can space the floor, and of course Bolick and you know how good he is,” Cone said. “We wore them down with our depth.”

“The semifinals is played every other day, and depth becomes very important. We obviously had the depth that they didn’t have.”

That depth gave the Kings a crack at a third Governors’ Cup crown in four seasons and puts them on the championship marquee for the first time since last season’s Commissioner’s Cup.Ginebra set the tone early, using a 13-6 run to take a 19-10 lead midway through the first quarter. NorthPort’s repeated runs from thereon only became a platform for the Kings’ stars to show off their fire-dousing skills.Justin Brownlee towed Ginebra with 36 points, 19 rebounds, eight assists, three steals and two blocks while Japeth Aguilar had 20 points, nine boards and seven dimes. LA Tenorio punched in 19 points and six assists while Scottie Thompson finished with a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds.

NorthPort bled Christian Standhardinger and Michael Qualls dry in an effort to lessen the impact of its absent cogs and also got a big boost from Paolo Taha.

Both playing the full 48 minutes, Standhardinger finished with 32 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists while Qualls added 25, eight rebounds and seven feeds. Taha chipped in 29 points, including 21 in the third quarter where NorthPort made things interesting. INQ