Ginebra regains control

MANILA, Philippines — Advantage: Barangay Ginebra.

Drawing deep into its reservoir of resolve, never-say-die Barangay Ginebra stole a dramatic 89-82 victory over Bay Area in Game 3 to wrest back control in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup finals last night at the MOA Arena.

Pounded all game by the Dragons, the crowd-backed Gin Kings turned it completely around with a massive 33-19 fourth-quarter storm en route to a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

When the chips were down, the ever-dependable Justin Brownlee gamely took over and dropped 19 of his 34 in the game-changing final period.

MVP Scottie Thompson hauled down the two biggest rebounds of his 10 total boards in the stretch, adding in a big-time tip-in that put Ginebra in front, 81-79, as the 15,004-strong roaring audience whooped it up.

On Jamie Malonzo’s trey, the Gin Kings stretched their lead to 85-79. Then Thompson forced Kobey Lam to make an errant pass to Andrew Nicholson that went out, leading to a trip to the foul line by Brownlee, who went 1-of-2 for a six-point cushion.

“Nothing’s working for us the whole game but I said to them we just got to keep on working, look for something positive to spark us,” said a relieved coach Tim Cone, whose charges bounced back from their 99-82 loss in Game 2 before the New Year break.

“Suddenly, Justin upped his motor and Scottie went crazy and got a couple of unbelievable rebounds and we got on a roll,” he added.

Throughout the rally, the Ginebra “Sixth Man” did its thing.

“The crowd kept feeding us, feeding us. We were really hungry as we weren’t getting much early and we fed on that feel from the crowd,” said Cone.

Christian Standhardinger backstopped Brownlee in scoring with 15, aside from putting the cuffs on Nicholson in the final push. Thompson scored 14 while Malonzo and LA Tenorio had 10 and eight, respectively.

Nicholson finished with 23 points and 24 rebounds before he limped out on an ankle injury in the last 36.1 seconds.

The Gin Kings will seek to get on the hill in the race-to four dispute in tomorrow’s Game 4.

Meanwhile, Converge welcomed 2023 by acquiring Jerrick Balanza from NorthPort in exchange for Allyn Bulanadi, and Barkley Eboña plus Blackwater’s first-round pick in the Season 48 Rookie Draft in favor of guards RK Ilagan and Mike DiGregorio, and Fil-Am Tyrus Hill.

Juami Tiongson, in another development, chose to stay at Terrafirma instead of becoming an unrestricted free agent.