TIM Cone watched Barangay Ginebra let the chance to win the PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup slip out of its grasp on Sunday after TNT import Chris McCullough exploded for 16 of his career-high 53 points in the final period to power the Tropang 5G to a cliffhanging 98-90 win in Game 6.
The victory set the title series to an expected full-house finale come Wednesday where both squads will duke it out for the championship at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
“I'll be the first to admit, McCullough was awesome tonight,” Cone said, moments after TNT’s huge escape act that prevented Ginebra from winning the championship outright.
“He hit shots, we couldn't control him all-game long. We challenged him from the outside, and he made the big shots from the outside. The last two shots he made, the three and the four, broke our backs.”
The 31-year-old McCullough carried the scoring brunt for TNT, which played without ace gunner Calvin Oftana (big toe injury) and big man Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser (ankle).
The former Brooklyn Nets forward finished also with 22 rebounds while knocking down five of seven from downtown in a huge display of grit as TNT lived to fight for another day.
And he did all that before 22,371 screaming fans, mostly coming in droves on Sunday with hopes of seeing the Gin Kings win their first PBA title since the 2023 Commissioner’s Cup.
The Game 6 gate attendance marked the highest since 54,589 fans packed the Philippine Arena where Ginebra beat the Bay Area Dragons in Game 7, setting a new PBA single-game attendance record on the way to winning the Commissioner’s Cup crown three years ago.
Justin Brownlee, who won his fourth Best Import award recently, churned out his second straight 50-point outing, firing 52 points on 23-of-33 shooting from the field, along with five boards, three assists, two steals, and two blocks with less than a minute of rest.
Cone knows Ginebra has been relying a lot on Brownlee in the series, but is confident that veterans like Scottie Thompson and newly minted Best Player of the Conference winner RJ Abarrientos will show up and rediscover their play come Game 7.
“Scottie and RJ were two for 18 in the field today. You're not going to see that very often,” Cone said.
“We're going to feel good about ourselves going into Game 7. We know we can take this, and we're going to go for it."
Abarrientos finished with just six points after making just 1 out of 12 from the floor, while Thompson logged in just three points on 1-of-6 shooting.
The one-time PBA Most Valuable Player fid contribute five rebounds and eight assists.
