With ‘special game,’ Kings slice up Beermen in Game 5 to move within win of finals berth

Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings rookie guard RJ Abarrientos during the PBA Governors’ Cup semifinals Game 5 against San Miguel Beermen. – PBA Images

The ball is now on Barangay Ginebra’s court to try and break the trend that San Miguel Beer had hoped but failed to do so on Friday night here in Antipolo City.

“We played a special game [tonight], and it reflected on the score,” said coach Tim Cone after a 121-92 win before a packed crowd at Ynares Center that put the Gin Kings on the doorstep of advancing to the PBA Governors’ Cup Finals.

“[But] can we follow it up? That’s the big question. It’s gonna be hard to follow it up against a team like San Miguel,” added Cone as Ginebra gained a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series after trading wins once more with the Beermen.

Game 6 will be on Sunday at Smart Araneta Coliseum where Cone and the Gin Kings look to lay the hammer down on the Beermen, who are now going to resume the role of being the counterpuncher after failing to sustain a 13-point first-quarter lead.

Scottie Thompson and rookie RJ Abarrientos had a lot to do with that Ginebra fightback, which resulted in a second straight blowout contest and third in the series.

Thompson had 18 of his 22 points in the first quarter while Abarrientos continued to impress in his maiden conference with a career-best 28 points, numbers Cone and the Gin Kings would like to see by the end of Sunday’s match.

“I keep telling the team that the hardest win in a playoff is after you’ve won,” said Cone. “Because the other team’s gonna come back with adjustments, with fire, with a different mindset like we did today. We had a different mindset.

“They gonna come back and if there’s two teams that are fairly equal, you’re gonna have a series like this. But if you noticed that a lot of times in a Game 7, it’s usually the team that wins back-to-back is gonna win the series.

“So we haven’t won back-to-back yet, it’s now flipping towards them, and I’m gonna say what [San Miguel coach Jorge Gallent] did by trying to stop the pattern and see if we can come out and win Game 6,” added Cone.

Abarrientos shot 9-of-14 from the field, with three triples and one four-pointer, in almost 22 minutes, which saw Ginebra outscoring San Miguel by 37 whenever the third pick in the Rookie Draft was on the floor.

Cone lauded Abarrientos as “a starter off the bench,” which has been the case for most of Ginebra’s campaign in the season-opening conference.

Abarrientos stepped up to the challenge of Ginebra trying to exceed San Miguel’s effort and play better defense than in Game 4, when it allowed the Beermen to score 131 points against 121, an indication of how the Gin Kings played to their opponent’s strength.

“There was a lot of miscommunication on our part [in Game 4], so we made it a point to come into this game with eagerness to win. And that’s why we were successful in this game,” said Abarrientos.