JUSTIN BROWNLEE erupted for 19 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter as Barangay Ginebra San Miguel scored a come-from-behind 89-82 win over Hong Kong Bay Area in Game 3 of the Philippine Basketball Association Commissioner’s Cup Finals at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Down 56-63 after the third period, Brownlee went on his lonesome to carry the Gin Kings to a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven championships series. It was a strong bounce-back win for Ginebra after suffering a 82-99 defeat in Game 2.
“Coach Tim[Cone], he talked to us, and told us to just keep going, keep playing aggressively, and definitely the crowd, we fed off from their energy in the fourth quarter,” said Brownlee, who also had 17 rebounds, four assists and three steals.
LA Tenorio nailed six of his eight points in the last period to help Ginebra.
But the other heroes were Scottie Thompson and Jamie Malonzo, who drilled the needed points in the dying seconds.
Thompson made a putback over import Andrew Nicholson for a 79-all deadlock before Malonzo hit a trey with 50 seconds left to get the lead.
The Gin Kings protected their lead the rest of the way.
“Not only that the Dragons are very big, but they are also very long because they have long wingspans,” Cone said. “It’s hard to penetrate their defense because once you get inside, you have to deal with Nicholson and Zhu [Songwei].”
“We just got to keep finding ways,” he added.
Christian Standhardinger added 15 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field while Thompson had a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds and Malonzo made 10 points.
Nicholson led the Dragons with 23 points and 24 rebounds, but couldn’t get big contributions from his teammates like Game 2 hero Songwei Zhu who just finished 12 points and Hayden Blankley who made 10 points.
Game 4 is set on Friday at Mall of Asia Arena at 5:45 p.m.