One down, three to go. It wasn’t the prettiest of wins but the grandslam-seeking TNT Tropang 5G will take it anytime.
The Tropang 5G flirted with disaster before escaping with a 99-96 victory over San Miguel Beer to take Game 1 of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup finals best-of-seven series Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
TNT squandered a 24-point third quarter lead and even trailed by one, 98-97, after Beermen big man Mo Tautuaa scored on a dunk with 56.1 seconds left. But the Tropang 5G got the crucial break of the game after Tautuaa’s tomahawk dunk was nullified due to basket interference after a review, giving the lead back to TNT with just 6.2 seconds left.
Calvin Oftana gave TNT a three-point lead off a pair of charities with 3.6 ticks left as the Tropang 5G survived a serious scare when CJ Perez missed a potential game-tying three at the buzzer.
“First of all, we expected it,” TNT head coach Chot Reyes said of Beermen’s fightback in the payoff period.
“We have no illusions that San Miguel will just roll down and lay down. We knew they would mount a fightback. We were talking to our players about it during timeouts. When they were making the run we kept telling the players to just relax and stay calm,” he said.
Game 2 is on Wednesday at the same Cubao venue.
RR Pogoy made a rousing comeback from a four-game absence due to a hamstring injury he sustained in the semifinals, dropping 23 points on a precision 7-of-11 shooting clip in just 18 minutes of action for the Tropang 5G.
Jordan Heading had 19 points while Oftana and Brandon Ganuelas Rosser added 13 markers each for TNT, which built a 67-43 advantage with 10:45 left in the third.
Down, 66-85, heading into the fourth quarteer, San Miguel ignited a huge rally including a 19-0 run to take a 96-94 lead after a triple by Chriss Ross with 1:45 left.
Pogoy stopped the bleeding with a trey of his own before Tautuaa’s slam dunk that bounced off the rim before going in. A late review showed that Tautuaa held on to the ring as the ball went in thus the interference.
TNT showed no signs of being a banged-up team that hobbled its way back to a third straight finals appearance, coming out with high energy and aggressiveness to overwhelm a rather cold San Miguel in the first half.