Team NSD gets some much-needed rest going in to the finals.
Barangay Ginebra San Miguel are back in the finals thanks to another heart-stopping display of their trademark never-say-die spirit at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Wednesday.
Down by double-digits to the San Miguel Beermen for most of Game 3 of their semifinals series in the PBA Governors' Cup, Ginebra looked dead in the water, and a Game 4 seemed inevitable. The Beermen, in fact, even pushed their lead to as much as 18 points in the third quarter, thanks to some inspired play and some surprisingly sloppy execution from the defending champions.
Then, Ginebra started to chip away at that lead—point by point, one possession at time. And by the time the game reached its final two minutes, Tim Cone’s squad had crept ahead, 83-82 on a booming Jeremiah Gray triple in transition. It was a lead Ginebra never relinquished as it nudged past the Beermen, 87-85, to sweep the series and book the first seat in the finals.
After the game, Cone told the media that he was prepared to mail it in if his team started showing signs of quitting.
“From a coach’s standpoint, I was just wondering, ‘Do I pull our guys out and live to fight another day on Friday or do we keep going at it?’ That was my battle throughout the whole third and fourth quarter,” Cone admitted. “But they just kept showing a will, and I was looking for them to stop, I was looking for them to kinda give up a little bit.”
Only, his wards did not show any quit in them.
“So, I stayed with them and, again, we lead through this kid right next to me [Scottie Thompson]. I was looking for that [Ginebra quitting], but it just didn’t come out. And so I stayed with them and we made a couple of big shots, we made some nice stops and before you know it, we suddenly won the game.”
And that, precisely, was the story of this game. Team NSD just kept fighting and fighting and fighting. In the end, all that fight proved enough to tow Ginebra to its seventh finals appearance since 2016.