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THE Barangay Ginebra Kings try to close out their semifinal series
against the Red Bull Barako Bulls Sunday in the 2008 Smart PBA
Fiesta Conference at the Araneta Coliseum.
Nobody’s expecting the series to be one-sided.
But that’s how the Kings work this conference.
They always defy odds in the season-ending tournament.
Who would have thought that the team that opened
its campaign with five straight losses could make it this far? Only
the loyal Ginebra fans perhaps.
After flirting with disaster in the elimination,
the Kings put toge-ther 11 straight wins to move within a step of
clinching their 17th finals appearance.
Red Bull is by no means patsy. But Ginebra’s
like a runaway train these days.
With Mark Caguioa and Jayjay Helterbrand
outplaying their counterparts from the Red Bull backcourt, Ginebra
pushed the second-seeded team on the brink of elimination.
It’s the first time that Red Bull went down
0-3 in a best-of-seven series. No team in history has ever comeback
from such deficit.
In the other semifinal pair, the Air21 Express
hope to inch closer to their first finals appearance when they go up
against the Magnolia Beverage Masters.
The Express are leading the series, 2-1, after
two straight close wins.
-- Krista Angela Montealegre
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