Ginebra out to pull off ‘impossible’ with potential sweep of San Miguel

ANTIPOLO, Philippines – Barangay Ginebra will try to pull off what has not been done in PBA history: sweep San Miguel in a best-of-five series.

Head coach Tim Cone said the Gin Kings are out to seize the rare opportunity after gaining a 2-0 lead against the Beermen in the semifinals of the PBA Governors’ Cup following a 121-103 blowout on Sunday, March 26.

“You’re playing a good team like San Miguel, it’s nearly impossible to beat them three straight times. We’re going to try to do the impossible,” said Cone.

According to PBA chief statistician Fidel Mangonon, this conference marked only the fourth time that San Miguel went down 0-2 in a total of 26 best-of-five affairs in franchise history.

But the Beermen were never swept, losing the three previous occasions by a 1-3 score.

Ginebra, though, is in prime position to stain that record, especially with the way it clobbered San Miguel in the wire-to-wire victory.

Racing to a 16-1 start, the Gin Kings were hardly threatened and enjoyed a lead as big as 24 points to deal the Beermen their most lopsided loss of the conference, which only eclipsed their 121-112 defeat in the series opener.

Before the playoffs, San Miguel lost only twice, falling to Converge and TNT by a combined 6 points.

“The bottomline is we want to grow within a series, we want to get better and better through what we do and how we do it,” said Cone.

“We want to do that throughout the series. So hopefully we’re better in Game 3 than we were in Game 2. We were better in Game 2 than we were in Game 1.”

The Beermen have also found no answers for the Gin Kings’ stars, with Christian Standhardinger and Justin Brownlee scoring 32 points each and Scottie Thompson netting a triple-double of 21 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists.

In Game 1, it was Jamie Malonzo instead of Thompson who formed a Big Three with Brownlee and Standhardinger, tallying 27 points.

But Cone said Ginebra is not resting on its laurels.

“You start saying you have that kind of lead, then you’re opening yourself out to being complacent and if you do that against a team like this, then you’re in big trouble,” said Cone.

Game 3 is on Wednesday, March 29, at the Araneta Coliseum. – Rappler.com