After Justin Brownlee tallied 106 points in Games 5 and 6 of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals, conventional wisdom says Chot Reyes will adjust his defense to at least contain the one man doing the heavy lifting for Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.
Then again, Chot Reyes has been anything but conventional in these PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals. Exhibit A is putting bigs—Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, Kelly Williams, and Chris McCullough—on RJ Abarrientos. Exhibit B is playing Brownlee one-on-one, usually with the smaller RR Pogoy.
It turns out, this refusal to send double teams on JB is intentional. It is all part of Chot Reyes’s grand plan.
Plan Backfires in Game 5—and Almost in Game 6
That plan didn’t work out as intended in Game 5, when Brownlee’s 54-point outburst proved enough to lead Ginebra to a crucial win and a 3-2 series lead.
“Our game plan backfired on us last game. Justin beat us by himself,” Reyes admitted after TNT tied the series with a Game 6 win on Sunday.
In Game 6, Brownlee nearly replicated his Game 5 heroics, hanging 52 more points on TNT as he almost led another fourth-quarter comeback. In fact, he already gave Ginebra an 80-78 lead and looked ready to go for the proverbial kill.
Then, JB’s counterpart, Chris McCullough, took over for the Tropa, firing 16 points in the latter half of the final frame to rescue TNT from the jaws of what looked like an inevitable defeat.
Chot Reyes Will Probably Challenge JB Again
Now, with Game 7 coming up, the question is, will Chot Reyes challenge Kabayan to beat TNT?
The answer is probably yes.
“There’s very little we can do to stop him,” Reyes acknowledged, “so our best bet to win is to defend the others.”
True enough, the Tropa haven’t been able to defend Brownlee in the past two games. But they have locked down every other Ginebra player—notably reigning Best Player of the Conference RJ Abarrientos and one-time PBA MVP Scottie Thompson.
That’s a trade-off that Chot Reyes will probably live with—even in Game 7.
