The Barangay Ginebra San Miguel is scheduled for a best-of-three series against the Magnolia Hotshots Pambansang Manok at 4:30 P.M. on July 23, 2019 live from the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.
The Gin Kings is now ahead and has the twice-to-beat advantage after they won Game 1 of their “Manila Classico” playoffs edition against rival, the Hotshots.
After scoring back-to-back career-best in scoring, Ginebra’s import Justin Brownlee was only held to 20 points.
That’s because Magnolia has thrown a stellar defense to at least slow down the scoring pace of the beloved foreign hire of the Gin Kings.
“Magnolia did a really good job of muddying it up with their defense. They really kept the pace slow and limited the touches of Justin and Stanley,” said Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
Though Ginebra pulled the victory in their series opener, the veteran coach still considered that match was a loss for them as they’re not able to execute the game plan they wanted to establish.
“As much as we won, it felt like a loss because we weren’t able to play the game we wanted to play at all. Credit to their defense and coaching staff for putting up a fine defensive game plan. We got to handle it better on Tuesday and make sure we’re better prepared,” he added.
Magnolia’s import Rakeem Christmas has displayed a teaser of how good an import he can be last Saturday.
He sported 18 points and 14 rebounds in that match which is much better the way he performed in his PBA debut.
Coach Chito Victolero and his entire squad are hoping that tonight will be the night that they’ll earn dividends after they made a risky move by switching imports at the tail end of the elimination round.