By REYNALD MAGALLON
Barangay Ginebra returned to the Finals through a familiar route – a stirring come-from-behind win
Christian Standhardinger scored on a short stab off a nice feed from Justin Brownlee with four seconds left as the Kings completed a comeback from 18-points down to sweep the San Miguel Beermen with a nail-biting 87-85 Game 3 win in the 2023 PBA Governors’ Cup semifinals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Wednesday, March 29.
The defending champions of the season-ending conference showed their poise as a 12-3 finishing kick in the final frame made up for their error-prone game that saw them commit 24 turnovers while also shooting just 52-percent from the foul line.
“It’s certainly different from the first two games, isn’t it. It was a real struggle out there from a coaching standpoint,” said head coach Tim Cone who admitted that he was already pondering the possibility of pulling the plug of their fight and trying to close it out on the next game day.
But his players, in a true never-say-die fashion, refused to go down without a fight until a window of opportunity opened for them in the waning minutes of the final frame – a chance which the Kings made sure to hold on to prevail.
Back-to-back hits from Standhardinger before Jeremiah Gray nailed a booming triple off the right wing to put Ginebra ahead for the first time since the first quarter and trigger the massive run.
Brownlee then put on the finishing touches as he scored on a jumper before breaking down SMB defense before issuing a nice assist to Standhardinger on a weak side, breaking an 85-all deadlock.
“I was just wondering do I pull my guys out and live to fight another day on Friday or do we keep going at it and that was my battle throughout the whole third and fourth quarter but they just kept showing a will. I was looking for them to kinda give up a little bit but they never did that so I stayed with them,” said Cone.
Brownlee as usual led the way with 22 points and 14 rebounds while the Best Player of the Conference frontrunner in Standhardinger scattered 14 points apart from posting 17 rebounds and seven assists. Scottie Thompson also added 17 points and 11 rebounds as the Kings secured a fifth finals appearance in the last seven editions of the Governors’ Cup.
