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BARANGAY Ginebra tries to wrap up its best-of-seven
finals series against San Miguel Beer with another win in Game 6 of
the TNT-PBA Philippine Cup finals Friday at the Araneta Coliseum.
Holding a 3-2 lead, the Kings are
looking for their 7th crown overall and third All-Filipino title if
they succeed tonight against the Beermen in their 7 p.m. encounter.
Ginebra has to climb back from a
0-2 deficit in the series before taking helm via three-game winning
streak, the last one a 94-82 win last Wednesday also at the Big
Dome.
Mark Caguioa and Jayjay
Helterbrand starred in that crucial Game 5 win as they combined for
54 points and they were responsible in keeping San Miguel at bay in
the fourth period.
Though a win away of claiming his
seventh title in the league, Kings mentor Jong Uichico refused to
say that the series is already in the bag.
“We’re there but not there
yet,” said Uichico who previously won six titles with San Miguel
in eight years.
“For sure, San Miguel won’t
give that title to us easily. We need to bring our A-game this
Friday and find all other ways to win,” he added.
A win by Uichico will put him in
the solo fourth spot in the winningest coach list behind Baby
Dalupan (15), Tim Cone (11) and Norman Black (7).
Ginebra is also eyeing to become
the fifth team to overcome a 0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven series
and win it. The last team to accomplish the feat was Purefoods
against Alaska in last year’s Philippine Cup semis.
And the records seem to favor the
Kings as 20 out of 26 teams that took a 3-2 lead in the series won
it, 23 of them in the finals where 12 of the 20 ended in Game 6.
San Miguel coach Chot Reyes is
expected to make the necessary adjustments just to send the series
into a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday.
But the team must not rely much
on Danny Seigle, the only consistent Beermen in his team. After
averaging 18.8 points per game in the first four meetings, Lordy
Tugade was held to just nine in Game 5 on just 3-of-7 shooting.
Romel Adducul, Dorian Peña and
Danny Ildefonso have been nonfactors in the last three games for the
Beermen.
--Joel Orellana
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