Bad time for a bad night for Kabayan
The legend of Justin Brownlee has grown so big that fans expect him to come up big almost every time—especially in a stage as big as the PBA Governors' Cup finals.
But on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, Kabayan came up quite short, playing one of his worst ever games in the PBA as his Barangay Ginebra San Miguel got ambushed by the fired up, hot-shooting TNT Tropang Giga, 95-82.
Brownlee, known for his prolific scoring and savvy playmaking, was off all game long, mustering a conference low 12 points in 44 minutes of action on 3-for-16 shooting from the field overall and 0-for-5 from beyond. He also missed 2 of his 8 free throws and looked flummoxed by TNT’s changing defenses, which included variations of the box-and-1 and some solid man-to-man defense by Tropang Giga reinforcement Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
The 12 points Brownlee scored matches his third lowest total in his illustrious PBA career. It is just behind the 11 points he scored in Game 1 of the Commissioner’s Cup semis against the Magnolia Hotshots and the 10 he had in Game 4 of the 2016 Governors’ Cup finals, when the myth of Brownlee was only at its infancy.
Ginebra, though, found a way to win both of those games. This time around, the defending champions found no such luck, as Brownlee’s lack of production ultimately spelled the difference in a game that was still close halfway through the fourth quarter—usually Brownlee’s cue to take over and carry Ginebra home.
No takeover happened on Wednesday night. In fact, Brownlee took just one shot in that fourth quarter—a missed three that sent him 0-for-5 from the white line and snapped his 77-game streak of making at least one triple.
Yes, it was that kind of night for Brownlee, and it was a night Ginebra needed him at his best.