MANILA, Philippines — After going through peaks and valleys over four grueling games, holder TNT and challenger Barangay Ginebra proceed to today’s tiebreaker with the oft-used quote in mind.
Not too high, not too low.
For the Gin Kings, it’s about keeping their feet on the ground after hacking out back-to-back wins that leveled the PBA Governors’ Cup title series from 0-2.
For the Tropang Giga, it’s picking themselves up from the Games 3 and 4 fumble that prevented them from moving one W away from a repeat championship after their two-game running start.
“For us right now, never too high, never too low. ‘Yung hunger namin nandon pa rin dapat and hopefully ma-turn around namin ‘yung series,” said Ginebra star Scottie Thompson.
“All we did was tie the series. It’s zero-zero now, (a virtual) best of three. So we can’t live off the last two games and just feel good about that. We got to stay forward-moving and forward-thinking,” said his coach Tim Cone.
TNT mentor Chot Reyes said it’s their turn in the pivotal fifth game set at 7:30 p.m. at the Smart Araneta Coliseum to try and swing the pendulum back to their side.
“Definitely, they have the momentum. But it’s the same thing with us. We had the momentum after (the first) two games and now we shifted,” said Reyes.
Using its dreaded defense and led by Best Import Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, TNT thoroughly dominated the series opener, 104-88, and quickly followed it up, 96-84.
But Justin Brownlee and the Gin Kings countered hard, 85-73, and 106-92, to make it all square.
Notes: Game 4 was a big hit both in live attendance and TV audience. The 16,783 fans on hand at the Smart Araneta Coliseum marked the largest live crowd since the record 54,589 of Game 7 of the Commissioner’s Cup finals in 2023 at the Philippine Arena. On TV, the game drew a rating of 4.7 percent on NUTAM (National Urban Television Audience Measurement) and 4.1 percent on PHINTAM (Philippine National Television Audience Measurement). This also paved the way for RPTV to climb and rank No. 3 in the ratings. The game peaked at 5.34 percent or viewers of 3.89 million.