Jordan Heading and Almond Vosotros provided the offensive spark. Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser swatted five enemy attempts and the TNT Tropang 5G survived Game 5 to live for another day in their PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven championship series against the San Miguel Beermen following an 86-78 win on a rainy Wednesday evening at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Scoreless in the first half, Heading poured in all of his total 13 markers in the second half.
Then, there’s Vosotros, a player who made a living being a legend in the 3×3 competitions, but cracked his way back to the regular roster of TNT this season.
Vosotros stepped up and finished with 11 points even as Ganuelas-Rosser was rock-solid on both ends of the floor.
Expected to serve as the rim protector, Ganuelas-Rosser exactly did that and blocked five shots, but surprisingly emerged as the top scorer of the team when he pumped in 14 of his 18 points in the opening quarter as the 5G’s next-man-up mentality was very much evident in a game they cannot afford to lose.
Six of the nine players utilized by head coach Chot Reyes wound up in double figures with Kelly Williams producing 14 points while having the gargantuan task of trying to limit the production of the league’s immovable force, June Mar Fajardo, who still managed to produce 13 points and 13 boards.
Calvin Oftana added 13 markers while RR Pogoy contributed 11 as TNT’s big guns got the much-needed help from their shock troopers.
Just when San Miguel Beer was about to complete a comeback from 15 points when it shoved to within 59-55 in the closing minute of the third, TNT turned on its offensive switch bridging the third and fourth quarters and unloaded 13 unanswered points to pull away anew.
“I saw a lot of fight and the unwillingness to give up,” said Reyes in summing up the character of his team, which now trimmed the series deficit to 2-3.
“Our pre-game talk discussion was all about telling them that this is a very, very long season and now, we’re down to the final week, so we wanted to make this as the best week,” he added. “Let’s see what happens. But based on the body language during yesterday’s practice and our game today, that they’re not willing to give up.”
San Miguel is looking to deny TNT a historic grand slam, a similar path which the only remaining pioneering franchise did in 2011, back when it was carrying the Petron Blaze Boosters.
