Games on Wednesday:
(Smart Araneta Coliseum)
5:15 p.m. — Rain or Shine vs Ginebra
7:30 p.m. — TNT vs Meralco
It was an unbelievable ending that left TNT head coach Chot Reyes laughing.
Even the Tropang 5G mentor, who has already seen a lot of strange things happen in the endgame, couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh — more of a mix of relief and disbelief — as the buzzer sounded and the all-Filipino defending champion survived a close call.
RR Pogoy nailed the go-ahead triple with 7.3 seconds remaining before TNT dodged the bullet after Meralco’s back-to-back point-blank misses to win by the skin of its teeth, 77-75, in Game 3 for a 2-1 lead in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup semifinals series at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The Tropang 5G pulled off a shocker despite playing without an import as emergency replacement Malick Diouf didn’t get his clearance to fill the spot left by injured super import Bol Bol. The 7-foot-3 Bol suffered an Achilles tear in TNT’s Game 2 loss last Friday.
With their main scorer, rebounder and inside stopper out for the rest of the mid-season conference, the Tropang 5G relied on a collective team effort to overcome the Bolts and regain control of the best-of-seven series.
“More than the caliber and depth of our team, I think it’s our heart (that got us through),” Reyes said.
“All of our discussion before practice even before we had any kind of game planning and tactical discussion, was just about setting our minds that we have a chance,” he added.
“We knew coming into this series that for us to beat Meralco, even when we had Bol, we have to match their energy and their effort. Because we’re all-Filipino without Bol we can’t match their energy and effort, we have to overcome it. We have to find a way to put in more energy and put in more effort than Meralco. That’s the only way we’ll have a chance. I think that’s the story, that’s how the game panned out.”
Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser put TNT up, 74-72, with 1:37 left in the game before Chris Newsome hit a trey for a 75-74 Meralco lead with 28.2 seconds remaining.
Pogoy answered with a dagger over the extended arm of Cliff Hodge to bring the Tropang 5G back up.
The Bolts had a chance to win it but CJ Cansino missed off a strong drive to the hoop and Bong Quinto couldn’t make it drop off a putback following an offensive board as time expired.
Rey Nambatac led TNT with 18 points and eight rebounds, Calvin Oftana added 15 while Jordan Heading scored 12. Pogoy finished with nine points.
“We’re just happy we won the game. There was so much uncertainty in the last couple of games with Bol getting hurt. It really took the air out of our team but we really wanted to come out here and play for Bol. He’s been carrying us all conference long and coach stressed that we had to play out hardest and our best today and we’re able to get it today,” said Ganuelas-Rosser, who had eight points and eight boards.
Marvin Jones had 22 points and 15 rebounds while Newsome added 10 points, six boards and four assists for the Bolts.
Game 4 is on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.