About 48 hours after squandering a big lead to Rain or Shine, Barangay Ginebra came up with a big turnaround performance on Sunday against last conference’s finals conqueror San Miguel Beer.
The Gin Kings defeated the Beermen, 107-96, led by a bounce-back performance by import Justin Brownlee who made up for his mistakes last Friday against the Elasto Painters.
Brownlee scored 34 points, 12 rebounds, three assists, three steals and four blocks to spearhead the Gin Kings against San Miguel.
“Losing a game is tough,” Brownlee said. “But these guys on the team, they’ve been playing in the league for awhile and they’ve been to the playoffs.”
“I think it was our focus. Losing in that game, we just want to come out with great focus. Coach Tim did a great job having a game plan for us and we went out there, executed very well.”
Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone revealed that Brownlee took the blame for not being able to rescue the team from a meltdown last Friday.
“He was upset in himself in that Rain or Shine game. He told me he took a bad shot at the end of the game. He texted me and apologized to the players,” Cone said.
But the coach commended Brownlee for bouncing back big time.
“I told him ‘you’ve done a lot of good stuff and you’re allowed to do one bad one. But he made it up tonight. Certainly. Justin particularly made big shots, big defensive plays down the stretch. That has been his MO (marching orders) for us,” Cone said.
“We were motivated after Rain or Shine. I could feel that our guys were motivated. I could feel it after we met and we went through the video. They were upset on the loss against Rain or Shine. It was a winnable game for us. We had a 14-point lead in the first half and we lost it, then we had a 16-point lead in the second half and lost it again. But our guys were motivated to come out with a win tonight.”
The Gin Kings posted a 20-point lead in the first half and were dominating their sister team throughout until a late rally shoved the Beermen to within three in the closing stage of the game.
But Ginebra was able to get the job done this time as it forged a tie with its victim at 6-2 card and made a push for a top two berth.
“We really persevered for a win this time,” Cone said.
