Brown drops double-double, powers Titan past TNT
TIRREL Brown drops a double-double performance of 29 points and 10 rebounds to power Titan Ultra to a 103-87 win over TNT Tropang 5G in the PBA Season 50 Governors’ Cup on Wednesday.
PHOTOGRAPH by Joey Sanchez Mendoza for DAILY TRIBUNE
Games tomorrow:
(Smart Araneta Coliseum)
5:15 p.m. — Magnolia vs Meralco
7:30 p.m. — Blackwater vs Barangay Ginebra
The bleeding stopped for Titan Ultra.
Tirrell Brown worked his way into a double-double to lead the Giant Risers to a morale-boosting, 103-87, victory over no less than limping defending champion TNT in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Governors’ Cup Wednesday at the Ynares Center-Antipolo.
Titan Ultra scored a breakthrough win after four tries in Group A behind Brown’s inspired game where he finished with 29 points on 12-of-19 shooting from the field and pulled down 10 rebounds.
“I just knew we really needed to win this game so I came out and gave my all. I tried to help on defense and offense, on both sides, so we came up with the win,” Brown said.
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Brown helped set the tone in the Giant Risers’ 31-point second quarter uprising that opened a 10-point lead for Titan Ultra heading into the halftime break.
Titan Ultra maintained a safe lead throughout the second half for the upset.
Defense played a key role for the Giant Risers especially in the second quarter when they effectively shut down Tropang 5G reinforcement Darius Days, who went scoreless after putting up nine markers in the first 12 minutes of the game.
“We made it a point in practice this week to focus on defense, focus on the help-side defense and focus on running back on transition. I think we did that well today that’s why we got the win,” added Brown, who also contributed five assists and three steals.
Titan Ultra wore down TNT with its running game, scoring 19 fastbreak points and converting the Tropang 5Gs miscues into 17 turnover points.
The Giant Risers also played unselfish basketball with 21 assists for the team’s balanced scoring.
Jerick Balanza had 13 points and seven rebounds, Joshua Munzon and Bryan Sajonia added 13 markers each while Aris Dionisio unloaded 10 points for Titan Ultra.
Titan Ultra head coach Rensy Bajar was particularly satisfied with how his team defended against TNT, which played sans injured key players Calvin Oftana, Jayson Castro, JP Erram, Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser and on leave Kelly Williams.
The Giant Rises for the first time in the season-ending conference held an opponent to below 100 points.
“I challenged my players to commit, number one on defense, because in our last three games that we played especially in our last game against NLEX, we played terrible defense,” said Bajar, recalling his squad’s 35-point beating last 14 July.
“It started with our rebounding and spilled into our transition defense. After our loss against NLEX we really worked on our transition defense and in rebounding.”
Titan Ultra erected its biggest lead at 22 after a Dionisio triple, 90-68, with 8:58 left in the payoff period.
TNT slipped to a 1-1 win-loss slate.
Days had 21 points on 7-of-19 field goal shooting and had six rebounds for the Tropang 5G.
Kim Aurin scored 11 and RR Pogoy added 10 for TNT. Rey Nambatac was limited to just five points after scoring 23 in the Tropang 5G’s close 106-103 opening game win over guest team Macau.
