It’s Purefoods vs. Red Bull, Part Deux
Phillip Kimpo II July 3rd, 2006 (Visited 1594 times)
"Knockout Sunday" is finally over. Pacquiao has dispatched Larios, and the Chunkee Giants and Barako have followed suit, defeating their rivals in riveting matches to advance to the PBA Finals.
The Purefoods cagers escaped with the skin of their teeth as they held off the Alaska Aces, 90-89, to complete an astounding comeback from a 3-1 series deficit. The Giants won the last three games of the series in close fashion. A PBA article describes the situation quite nicely:
It was a painful loss for Tim Cone, who had the Finals within his reach after the Aces took 2-0 and 3-1 leads in the series.
Although the Alaska coach remained cautious after winning Game 4, Cone proclaimed the Giants will need to play three straight great games to turn the series around.
Which was exactly what Purefoods did.
The Giants did what everyone thought was unimaginable, winning Games 5, 6 and 7 to reach their second straight conference Finals.
The Red Bull Barako, on the other hand, needed a game-winning shot from Junthy Valenzuela in the dying seconds of their Game 7 against the San Miguel Beermen. When the smoke cleared, the defending champions were back in familiar territory -- the Finals. From a PBA article:
The Barakos dominated the Beermen but went on the verge of total collapse at endgame.
Luck, however was on their side in the closing seconds.
Red Bull came through with the winning play in the last 3.7 seconds with Valenzuela shattering the 84-all deadlock at the buzzer sending the Barakos and their supporters to a frenzied celebration.
The battle between the Barako and the Giants will begin on Wednesday, with the tagline "Repeat vs. Revenge" undoubtedly going to be abused by the game commentators. Purefoods is looking to erase the stigma of their Finals loss against Red Bull last conference, while the latter will try to extend its reign.
July 3rd, 2006 07:14
What a game! What a shot by Junthy! And previous to that, a similar shot by Olsen to get them behind by just 1 point! Those are the kind of games I've been dying to see from the PBA.
What a SUNDAY as a whole! I was stuck in front of the tube and didn't play ball even when the weather cleared like I usually do on Sundays!
Let's not forget: Mabuhay si Idol!