Bay Area Dragons’ Kobey Lam. –PBA IMAGES
A stunning escape act to kick off Bay Area’s PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinal series against San Miguel Beer was enough for coach Brian Goorjian to see the duel for what it really is.
“This is a war, not a game; we got a lot to play,” Goorjian said after the Dragons bucked a flat start and a 16-point third quarter deficit behind a furious rally in the final period to stun the Beermen, 103-102, in their best-of-five opener on Wednesday at PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.
A layup by Kobey Lam in transition with seven seconds left enabled Bay Area to snatch victory away from San Miguel and perhaps delivered a statement that it didn’t win 10 games to top the elimination round just to fall short of its ultimate goal.
But even with a chance to take a 2-0 lead in Friday’s Game 2 at the same venue, Goorjian is more concerned about bracing for a big response from San Miguel.
“A series is different from the regular season,” said Goorjian. “You’re playing the same team maybe five times and the team that makes the adjustment and gets better as the series goes on is the team that is gonna win the series. This is just one game.
“There’s a lot of things that we didn’t do well that we can do better at and that will be the focus. Recovery, getting their bodies fresh again and then making adjustments where we got hurt in this first one, and see where it takes us,” he added.
Bitter pill
The result was a bitter pill to swallow for the Beermen, who came into the series with high hopes of denying the Dragons’ bid to become just the second foreign team to win a championship despite losing by 26 to the same team in their elimination round meeting two months ago.
San Miguel, which won six in a row after assistant Jorge Gallent was tasked to take over after coach Leo Austria was placed under health protocols, showed its mettle behind CJ Perez, Terrence Romeo, import Devon Scott and June Mar Fajardo.
But even after going ahead, 83-67, in the third and appearing to have shrugged off the Dragons rally to lead, 102-99, with less than a minute to go, the Beermen couldn’t seal the deal. And now, they’ll have to figure out a way to bounce back and tie the series.
“They didn’t give up until the final buzzer,” Perez said in Filipino. “We have to make sure that we can finish the game strong.”
Dragons import Andrew Nicholson turned in 30 points and 15 rebounds in his second game back after Myles Powell went down with an injured foot. But it was Bay Area’s local players who made the plays when it mattered.
Zhu Songwei, Hayden Blankley, Lam and Glen Yang were contributing on both ends as the deficit slowly disappeared. They also refused to falter even when the Dragons were on the brink of defeat.
Key assists
Yang accounted for the two assists that set up Bay Area’s win, the first finding Blankley for the layup that cut the margin to one at 102-101. A stop on the next play set up Yang’s outlet for Lam, whose layup put the Dragons ahead for good.
“We’ve been saying this all along. We’re not winning this by depending on one guy. And it was kind of the way we started, it was all Myles or all about Andrew, and they need help to get this,” Goorjian said.