MANILA – Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings surged to a 17-0 start and never looked back for a 130-100 domination over San Miguel Beermen in Game 4 of the 2018 PBA Commissioner’s Cup finals last night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Justin Brownlee flirted with triple-double 37 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists while Gregory Slaughter and Negrense Joe Devance added 19 and 17 points, respectively.
With the win, the Kings tied the best-of-seven series at 2-2.
It opened the match with 17 points behind Brownlee, Slaughter and LA Tenorio. The lead grew further to 39-19 on three straight triples from Devance and Earl Scottie Thompson.
The Kings increased the lead further to 46-23 early in the second period on inside hits by Slaughter but the Beermen had a huge run to come to within 43-57. However, conversions from Brownlee and Devance gave the Kings a 67-52 halftime lead.
The Beermen had its last push in the third period. It cut the deficit to 13 points but the Kings responded with another huge run from Brownlee, Japeth Aguilar and Solomon Mercado for its largest lead at 123-85 on a follow-up hit by Prince Caperal.
Arwind Santos led the way with 22 points, including six triples, while rookie Christian Standhardinger and June Mar Fajardo chipped in with 15 markers apiece for the defending champions Beermen.
Prior to the game, Fajardo captured his record seventh PBA Best Player of the Conference award while Brownlee snagged his first-ever PBA Best Import of the Conference plum.
Fajardo was the runaway winner in the stats race and drew the nod of the media, his fellow players and the PBA Commissioner’s Office for a total of 1,153 points.
Alaska Aces’ Vic Manuel was the runner-up with 766 points.
Brownlee, meanwhile, emerged as No. 1 in terms of statistics with 539, and runaway winner as choices of both media (445) and the PBA (150). He did win the players vote but by a close margin against Beermen’s Renaldo Balkman, 75-68.
BOX SCORE:
GINEBRA 130 – Brownlee 37, Slaughter 19, Devance 18, Tenorio 17, Mercado 9, Aguilar J. 8, Thompson 7, Caperal 7, Chan 4, Mariano 2, Manuel 2, Caguioa 0, Cruz 0, Ferrer 0.
SAN MIGUEL 100 – Santos 22, Fajardo 15, Standhardinger 15, Balkman 14, Cabagnot 13, Nabong 6, Lassiter 4, Pessumal 4, Heruela 3, Ross 2, Ganuelas-Rosser 2.
Quarterscores: 39-21, 67-52, 97-75, 130-100./PN
