The TNT Tropang 5G won Game 4 of this Finals series against Barangay Ginebra for a lot of reasons. One of them was the Tropa’s unforgiving defense, and no one felt it more than newly minted PBA Best Player of the Conference winner RJ Abarrientos.
Abarrientos, who was honored with the award just prior to Game 4, came out firing. In fact, he was up to 17 points by halftime already on 7-for-11 shooting, including an elbow jumper off a double behind-the-back that had Rey Nambatac completely lost.
In other words, Abarrientos was having one of those games again.
TNT Puts the Clamps on Abarrientos
Thanks to those first-half heroics, Ginebra entered intermission with a 53-50 lead and looked poised to notch their third win in the series.
But TNT had other plans, with Chot Reyes putting his top defender, RR Pogoy, on Abarrientos to start the third quarter. The veteran proved up to the task, playing physical denial defense on the sweet-shooting sophomore of Ginebra every time down. Then, when Pogoy subbed out at the 8:23 mark, Reyes used Calvin Oftana to play the same denial defense on the reigning PBA Rookie of the Year.
Pogoy’s and Oftana’s length and mobility proved to be difference-makers as they made it extra difficult for Abarrientos to even catch the ball. Even when he did, Pogoy and Oftana had the foot speed and lateral movement to keep up with the former KBL star and force him to give the ball up most of the time.
That wasn’t all. Rather than hedge on pick-and-rolls involving Abarrientos, the Tropa trapped hard and forced the young guard to pass the ball up. And every time he did, that aggressive denial, coupled with TNT’s fierce, swarming defense, made it nearly impossible for the rock to find its way back to Ginebra’s sharpshooter.
The Ugly Aftermath
All those defensive adjustments worked wonders for TNT. Instead of making Abarrientos shoot contested jumpers, the Tropa totally kept the former FEU Tamaraw from shooting. After going 7-for-11 in the first half, the league’s leading scorer of the conference only had three attempts in the second half, making just one.
In all, Abarrientos scored just 4 points in the last 24 minutes of Game 4 while also committing two turnovers. His last field goal was at the 9:14 mark of the third quarter—a tough one-legged fadeaway on the left baseline over Oftana. Abarrientos couldn’t create for his teammates either as TNT’s defense completely took him out of the flow of Ginebra’s offense.
Simply put, TNT unleashed a defensive masterclass on RJ Abarrientos in the second half of Game 4.
Now, it’s up to Ginebra to pry him open for Game 5.
