After ‘coming back from the dead,’ Barangay Ginebra has found a boost of confidence as it takes on defending champion San Miguel Beermen in a best-of-seven PBA Philippine Cup semifinals series.
The Gin Kings had to get out of the trenches just to punch a ticket to the playoffs. They started with a 2-4 win-loss record before winning five straight and finishing fifth in the standings after the elimination round with a 7-4 slate.
In the quarterfinals, they had to go through the twice-to-beat Converge FiberXers.
After RJ Abarrientos’ 35-point masterclass in the first game that forced a sudden-death Game 2, Ginebra needed to climb back from a six-point deficit in the 1:39 mark of overtime. Stephen Holt then delivered a holiday miracle in the form of a buzzer-beating trey as the Gin Kings grabbed a 99-98 win and a ticket to the semifinals.
After the game, Holt said that the team is ‘hungry’ as they are eager to get back to work against the red-hot defending champions Beermen.
‘Back to work. We’re so hungry. Like I said, we’re playing the best basketball of the season right now,’ Holt said after the win last Sunday.
‘We just want to continue that momentum, continue that work, and, you know, just let the chips fall when they meet. But we definitely feel very confident right now,’ he added.
Holt was struggling in the game, shooting a 2-of-9 clip from the floor and 1-of-7 from beyond the arc before his conference-saving play. He finished with nine points, eight rebounds and four assists against the FiberXers, whose big performances from Juan Gomez-de Liano, Archie Concepcion, Justin Arana and Justine Baltazar went down the drain with the loss.
Ginebra head coach Tim Cone, for his part, said that they are very familiar with San Miguel, a team that won 10 straight games dating back from the elimination round.
‘Not much to think about them right now. We know who they are. We know them. They know us, and we took them to seven games last time. We’ll see if we can flip the script,’ he said.
‘That’s what we’re going to try to do is flip the script this time around. But we know they’re tough. But right now we’re just going to live in the moment. the fact that we came from dead to the semifinals, and we’re ecstatic about that,’ he added.
The Gin Kings will take on the Beermen on Sunday, 7:30 p.m., at the Big Dome.