Author: Martin Bolima
Photo Credit: PBA Images
The PBA Governors’ Cup semis cast is officially complete after nearly two weeks of action. But surprisingly, the team atop Rebanse’s Weekly Ranking PBA Edition is not one of the two top seeds. Instead, getting the top spot is a familiar face that has won this conference four times in its last six editions.
1. Barangay Ginebra San Miguel
The crowd darlings were up and down in the eliminations as coach Tim Cone looked to integrate newcomers Stephen Holt and Isaac Go and rookie RJ Abarrientos into the mix. The team even lost two of their last three games after a four-game winning streak, which briefly put them atop Group B. But it appears Ginebra has put its early struggles into the rearview mirror as it faced a familiar foe in the Allen Durham-led Meralco Bolts. Playing with a sense of urgency and displaying its familiar crisp ball movement and endgame poise, Ginebra blanked the Bolts 3-0 in a series most experts thought would go the distance.
Justin Brownlee was solid as usual, posting per-game averages of 30.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.3 blocks highlighted by his 39-point tour de force in Game 2, which JB punctuated with a game-saving block and a game-winning stepback trey. But the key has been the ultra-aggressive Scottie Thompson, who was in attack mode all series long as he averaged 18 points in three games—including 19 each in Games 1 and 2—while playing his usual ball-hawking defense on Chris Newsome.
Indeed, Ginebra seems to be hitting its stride at just the right time, especially with Maverick Ahanmisi, Holt, and Abarrientos all finding their groove in Ginebra’s guard-heavy, perimeter-oriented attack.
2. TNT Tropang Giga
Where Rondae Hollis-Jefferson goes, the Tropang Giga will follow. And it appears the Tropa are poised to follow their prized reinforcement back to the Governors’ Cup finals. TNT has been impressively consistent throughout the conference, with RHJ’s all-around brilliance—32.3 points per game, 13.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists in the quarterfinals—and a stout, stingy defense making the biggest difference for the defending champs.
But the Tropang Giga is far from a one-man show as the Tropa have relied on a balanced local attack to complement RHJ’s singular brilliance. In their quarterfinals series against the NLEX Road Warriors, in fact, the Tropa found different heroes—RR Pogoy (13 points) and Jayson Castro (12) in Game 1; Calvin Oftana, Glen Khobontin (17), and Rey Nambatac (17) in Game 3; and Nambatac (19) and Pogoy (18) again in Game 4—to backstop Hollis-Jefferson.
Ultimately, defense proved to be the key for TNT, holding the prolific NLEX offense to 95.5 points a game in the quarters—9.1 fewer than the 104.6 the Road Warriors averaged in the elims.
3. Rain or Shine Elasto Painters
The Elasto Painters have been the feel-good team of this Governors’ Cup, topping Group B which also featured Ginebra and the San Miguel Beermen. But they nearly got ambushed by a hard-fighting Magnolia Hotshots that brought Yeng Guiao’s upstart squad to a winner-take-all Game 5. In fact, the Elasto Painters needed a fiery fourth quarter and some timely heroics from Andrei Caracut to finally send the Hotshots home.
A big reason Rain or Shine struggled in the quarters was their erratic shooting from downtown, going only 36-for-159—a ghastly 22.6%—in the five games it played. The Elasto Painters were particularly woeful in Games 2 and 4, where they went 14-for-75 in the two blowout losses. The three-ball is a huge part of the Rain or Shine arsenal, and when the well dries up, Guiao’s boys become very beatable. That the Elasto Painters figured out ways to win despite these shooting woes is a testament to their resilience and is perhaps an indication they are coming into their own.
Even so, Rain or Shine’s struggles against Magnolia exposed some major kinks, so expect the talented, disciplined, and defensively stout Tropang Giga to pounce on them.
4. San Miguel Beermen
After giving Ginebra a 49-point beatdown in the second round of the eliminations, it looked like the Beermen were about to turn on the jets all the way to the finals. Instead, they ended the elimination round with back-to-back losses and looked uncharacteristically shaking in their two early wins against the Converge FiberXers to start the quarters. Sure enough, San Miguel faltered in Games 3 and 4 and nearly lost Game 5 if not for a monstrous 40-point, 24-rebound effort from June Mar Fajardo.
That the Beermen pulled through does not hide the porous defense they showed in the quarters, allowing Converge to average 105.6 points in the series highlighted by two 114-point efforts in Games 3 and 4. This could be a major problem for San Miguel against Ginebra, who averaged 102.6 points a game in the elimination round and 105.3 markers against a Meralco Bolts team that held opponents to only 93.8 points per game in the elims.
Then again, San Miguel is still bannered by Fajardo, and that alone makes the PBA winningest ballclub a force to be reckoned with—albeit one that might be a bit shaken and tired after that duel with Converge.
The Semis Is About to Start
The four teams get a couple of days off before they plunge back to semis action on Wednesday, October 9, at the PhilSports Arena. Ginebra will take on San Miguel in the curtain-raiser, followed by TNT facing off against Rain or Shine.
