Beermen force decider

It’s back to square one.

San Miguel Beer kept its semifinals hopes alive with a fired-up third quarter and a thrilling endgame.

It was a rollercoaster of emotions for the Beermen, overhauling a 17-point deficit before staving off a late Barangay Ginebra fightback to engineer a 108-102 Game 4 win and force a rubber match in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Governors’ Cup best-of-five quarterfinals on Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

San Miguel unleashed a 46-point third-quarter storm, highlighted by a blistering scoring run, to take control but still needed to hang tough when the Kings closed in to within two in the last 25.9 seconds after trailing by 19.

“I have to credit the players because when we’re down by 15 points (by halftime), they did everything for us to win,” Beermen head coach Leo Austria said.

“Our defense gave us a lot of chances to score points. We’re able to force them to commit turnovers that resulted to turnover points and a lot of fastbreaks. We had 19 fastbreak points and that is huge in a series like this.”

San Miguel will try to complete a reverse series sweep on Tuesday at the Ynares Center-Antipolo.

George King poured in 35 on 10-of-21 field goal shooting and grabbed 15 rebounds to lead the Beermen. Veteran guard Chris Ross turned back the hands of time, submitting 20 points, nine assists and six rebounds while CJ Perez and Don Trollano chipped in 14 and 11 markers, respectively, for San Miguel.

The Beermen built a 94-75 lead at the start of the final canto but got into trouble when Ginebra mounted a 25-9 counterattack to cut its deficit to 103-100 with 2:13 left after a Nard Pinto triple.

King fired back with a basket before Scottie Thompson nailed two foul shots for a 105-102 count. King then hit two more free throws before Ross’ insurance split from the line for a safe six-point cushion in the final 10.6 seconds.

Trailing behind, 44-61, after Kings import Jordan Murphy’s basket with 10:19 left, San Miguel went berserk with a blinding 22-0 run in a shocking turnaround.

King ignited the decisive rally with a triple and capped it with a layup as the Beermen took a 66-61 advantage with 6:13 left in the third. He scored 11 of the team’s points in the unanswered charge.

San Miguel kept pressuring Ginebra the rest of the period and entered the fourth quarter holding an 87-73 advantage.

It was tied at 26 by the end of the first quarter, with no team leading by more than five points.

Ralph Cu waxed-hot in the second quarter, hitting three triples for 11 points to spark the Kings’ breakaway as they outscored the Beermen, 29-15, in the period.

Ginebra entered the halftime break comfortably on top, 55-41.

Thompson finished with 27 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Kings, who squandered a 2-0 series advantage.