Here are the live scores, updates, and results of the 2021 PBA Governors’ Cup Finals between the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel and the Meralco Bolts scheduled on April 6, 2022, at 6:00 PM.
The Meralco Bolts knock on the front door of the 2021 Governors’ Cup Finals and are greeted once again by the waiting Barangay Ginebra San Miguel. For the fourth time, these two franchises are going to battle once again, continuing the formation of a new rivalry in the league.
The Bolts are looking to snap their losing momentum against Ginebra in their previous three duels in the Finals and finally take the trophy while the opposing team, the Gin-Kings, are looking to maintain their winning streak and add another trophy to their collection.
Ginebra is still having the stellar services of Justin Brownlee, who scored 47 big points in their last clash against the NLEX Road Warriors, ending their best-of-five Semi-Finals series.
As for Meralco, they now have Tony Bishop instead of their long-time import, Allen Durham, who is now playing in Japan after he was advised by Norman Black to do so.
Meralco is hoping to win against Ginebra as they have lost all of their past three Finals series against them.
“First of all, it’s a blessing to be back in the finals again. It’s something you really have to cherish because it doesn’t happen all the time and when you get to the finals, you really want to take advantage of your opportunity,” said, Norman Black.
“Yes, we haven’t beaten them out of the last three times we played against them but we’re hoping that this will be the time that we will beat them.”
In-game one of the fourth chapter, we may not be seeing some key players from both teams due to injuries.
Japeth Aguilar, Ginebra’s athletic big man, and Chris Banchero of the Bolts are uncertain to make an appearance in their first contest against each other. Aguilar has been suffering from a calf injury since the Semi-Finals while Banchero has an upper-body injury in the same series as well.
“Japeth is still basically, honestly, day-to-day,” Tim Cone shared.
Since game one of the Semi-Finals, Aguilar has not stepped on the court to play for the team.
“You don’t wanna rush him back, because it could get worse and then knock him out for not only this conference, but maybe into the next conference or longer,” Tim Cone explained. “So we have to be careful with him and make sure he’s very near 100% before we can bring him back onto the court.”
“We’re hoping to get him back at some point during the series, but that’s not a hundred percent. We’ll see as we go along,”
As for Banchero, he had limited playing minutes in game five against Magnolia where they won with a 94-81 lead.
“Chris Banchero did not practice today, and we’ll see what will happen tomorrow, whether he’ll be able to go or not,” Norman Black said. “I guess he’s really a game-time decision right now.”
“I’m really leaving it up to him at this point because he knows his body better than anyone. But hopefully, he will be available in the series,”
Chris Newsome is one of four players for Meralco that was part of their three previous duels against the Gin-Kings.
“Fourth time’s a charm, right? I still have fresh memories of the last time we were in finals with them,”Newsome shared. “It wasn’t as competitive as we would have liked it to be.”
Meralco now has new faces to battle against Ginebra, two of them are big pieces in their triumph against the Hotshots, namely, Allein Maliksi and Raymond Almazan.
Maliksi recorded 24 points and sank down six three-pointers while shooting 9-13 overall while Raymond Almazan converted all of his nine attempts, scoring 18 points for the squad.
Cone opted to let his star players take most of the minutes in their Semi-Finals semis against NLEX as three of his Gin-King players are averaging almost 40 minutes a game, namely, Tenorio, Thompson, and import Brownlee. Because of the uncertainty of Aguilar, we might be seeing Standhardinger start for most of the Finals series.