BATANGAS – Jayjay Helterbrand scored a career-high 35 points and Barangay Ginebra beat San Miguel Beer, 87-82, in a highly physical contest to keep its slim chance for an outright semifinal berth in the KFC PBA Philippine Cup at the Batangas City Sports Center here last night.
“I felt down in our last two games coming off a battle with injury. But this is an important game, I had to step up,” said Helterbrand after leading the Kings to the decisive victory pushing the team two rungs up to fourth place at 9-8.
The Kings gain a playoff crack at the second outright semifinals seat if they beat the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, and the Talk n Text Tropang Texters lose to the Air21 Express on Christmas Day.
The Beermen closed out their elimination-round stint with an even 9-9 win-loss record.
Sliding to sixth place on a third straight defeat, the Beermen are now even in danger of missing an automatic passage to the quarterfinals.
Danny Seigle returned from a long layoff but hardly made his presence felt in the contest marred by the ejection of Jay Washington on two technical fouls and separate technical infractions by Ginebra players Junjun Cabatu, Willy Wilson and Ronald Tubid, and San Miguel coach Siot Tanquingcen
Helterbrand stayed cool and composed as he broke his previous best of 34 with a hot performance built around 8-of-18 shooting from beyond the arc.
The prolific Fil-Am guard fuelled Ginebra’s breakaway in the third quarter and himself delivered the clutch baskets in sealing their win at endgame.
Helterbrand and Tubid took turns in delivering the goods for Ginebra early on as the Kings started with an 18-4 run before settling for a 41-38 lead at the half.
With Helterbrand stepping up his game all the more in the second half, the Kings built an 18-point lead at 58-40 and kept the Beermen at bay the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, Sta. Lucia Realty seeks an outright quarterfinals slot as it clashes with also-ran Red Bull at the resumption of play at the Astrodome today.
Purefoods hopes to stay in the running for the Magic Five as it takes on elimination-round topnotcher Alaska Milk in the other game.
The Realtors and the Bulls tangle at 4 p.m. then the Giants and the Aces square off at 7:30 p.m. in the penultimate playdate in the double-round elimination phase.