It looked like the San Miguel Beermen had Jordan Murphy figured out.
Murphy put up 31.0 points on 60% shooting and a 24-for-31 clip from the charity stripe in Games 1 and 2. But in Games 3 and 4, Murphy could only muster 16.5 points on 41% shooting and just 9-for-16 from the foul line.
Not coincidentally, Ginebra won the first two games of its PBA Governors’ Cup quarterfinal showdown with San Miguel. The Beermen then returned the favor in back-to-back games.
In Game 5, Jordan Murphy came back to life, pouring in 31 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field and 15-for-16 shooting from the free-throw line to go along with 11 rebounds.
Ginebra, perhaps unsurprisingly, won again.
Jordan Murphy Follows Teammates’ Advice
Postgame, the energetic forward told reporters he found confidence in his Ginebra teammates, whom he said encouraged him to “just keep going.”
“That was just my teammates finding me, having confidence in me,” Murphy said when asked about his big bounce-back. “All week they were telling me, just don’t worry about the last two games, just keep going. And that’s just what I did. I made sure that I was just aggressive like I usually am and let the chips fall into the net.”
Jordan Murphy was certainly aggressive in Game 5, and it started in the very first quarter, where he scored 8 of his 31 points and went to the line four times. It only snowballed from there.
Ginebra’s Guards Did the Heavy Lifting
While Jordan Murphy had himself a game, he made sure to laud Ginebra’s guards for doing “the heavy lifting.”
“Nards [Pinto] really did a lot of the heavy lifting. Our guards did a lot of the heavy lifting. Defensively, putting controlled pressure on their guard,” Murphy stressed.
Those guards, in this case, were Pinto and Scottie Thompson. The two veterans, who have won three championships together at Ginebra, sparked the barangay’s backbreaking 47-23 response after trailing 76-63 late in the third quarter with pesky defense that included back-to-back steals early in the final frame—one by Thompson and then by Pinto—that led to layups.
Indeed, Pinto and Thompson did some heavy lifting to rally Ginebra back. Then Jordan Murphy did some lifting of his own in the fourth quarter—9 more points—to seal the deal and Ginebra’s semis ticket.
