Ginebra claims semis ticket

Barangay Ginebra San Miguel cruised into the semifinals after torching Magnolia, 99-77, in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup quarterfinals Saturday at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

The No. 2 seed didn’t need to use its twice-to-beat advantage in the first step of the playoffs to become the first squad through to the next round.

Ginebra will face in the best-of-seven semis the survivor in the best-of-three quarters showdown between Meralco and NLEX.

Christian Standhardinger was relentless the whole game to finish with a conference-high 36 points on 16-of-23 field goal shooting he spiked with 11 rebounds and five assists for the Gin Kings before calling it a night with two minutes left and the Gin Kings up by 22.   

The Gin Kings tightened the screw on defense to shut the door on the Hotshots, who bled on offense with an atrocious 38 percent field goal shooting.

“We have a lot of respect for Magnolia. They handled us quite a bit in the last couple of years, so we knew we had to come out to play a great game. We saw what happened to San Miguel in the first game. They were the No. 1 seed we didn’t want that happening to us at No. 2,” Ginebra coach Tim Cone said as he mentioned the upset the top seeded Beermen suffered at the hands of Terrafirma.  

“I just felt that the guys came out aggressively and did a great job on the defensive side. Our bigs Christian and Japeth (Aguilar) are really rotating well and getting out of ball screens and that makes all the difference in the world for us,” he added.

“We just had really good energy throughout the game, and we never let it settle in. We just kept pushing and pushing so it was a great all-around performance all the way through.”  

Ginebra pulled away starting with under eight minutes left in the second quarter, igniting a 20-6 blitz to go up 52-36 at halftime.

It was all the Gin Kings in the second half as they erected a 25-point lead, 85-60, off a triple by Maverick Ahanmisi with 9:31 left in the game.   

Ahanmisi had 16 makers, Aguilar had 12, Scottie Thompson had a double-double of 11 points and 10 assists while Ralph Cu got 11 markers for the Gin Kings.

Magnolia after a runner-up finish in the Commissioner’s Cup became the first casualty of the playoffs after struggling on offense and missing the services of Jio Jalalon due to a knee injury.

Mark Barroca shouldered most of the scoring with 19 points on a sour 9-of-20 field goal shooting and had eight assists and six rebounds for the Hotshots. Aris Dionisio made 10 while Ian Sangalang and Pau Lee were limited to eight and six points, respectively.  

Box scores:

GINEBRA (99) --- Standhardinger 26, Ahanmisi 16, J.Aguilar 12, Thompson 11, Cu 11, Pringle 6, Gumaru 3, Pinto 2, David 2, Onwubere 0, R.Aguilar 0, Pessumal 0, Tenorio 0, Murrell 0

MAGNOLIA (77) –-- Barroca 19, Dionisio 10, Sangalang 8, Tratter 8, Abueva 8, Mendoza 7, Lee 6, Laput 4, Balanza 3, Dela Rosa 2, Ahanmis 2, Reavis 0, Jalalon 0, Eriobu 0

Quarters: 28-17, 52-36, 80-58, 99-77