TNT Tropang GIGA avenged its defeat in the PBA Philippine Cup last year by eliminating defending champion Barangay Ginebra in their quarterfinals face-off, 84-71, on Wednesday at the Don Honorio Ventura State University gym in Bacolor, Pampanga.
The shorthanded Kings had no answer against the balanced scoring of the Texters, who only needed to win once to move to the semifinal round.
Roger Pogoy and Troy Rosario led the way for TNT, which got off a 10-day break after securing its place in the quarters as the top seed.
Pogoy scored 16 points for the Texters, who also got 15 from Rosario.
"Masaya kami tinalo namin yung team na tumalo sa amin last time," said Rosario, who also logged five rebounds and three assists.
"Before the game, coach (Chot Reyes) talked about 'urgency and how do we want to win it today.' Pag binigyan namin sila ng chance, hihirap ang sitwasyon dahil 50/50 na."
TNT actually had to fight it out against the Kings in the early stages of the game.
But Ginebra, which played minus its key cogs in Japeth Aguilar and Scottie Thompson, fell back in the last two quarters.
"I'd like to congratulate Coach Tim Cone and their coaching staff... they came out with a very good game plan, the start was extremely difficult for us," said TNT coach Chot Reyes.
"We've been off for 10 days and so we expected that we wouldn't be sharp at the start of the ball game and we needed to keep on grinding and count on our defense to be able to stay in the game. The game was a lot harder than the score indicated."
The Scores :
TNT 84 – Pogoy 16, Rosario 15, M. Williams 11, Montalbo 10, Erram 9, Castro 7, Khobuntin 5, K. Williams 4, Heruela 3, Reyes 2, Marcelo 2, Alejandro 0, Javier 0, Mendoza 0, Exciminiano 0
GINEBRA 71 – Standhardinger 17, Pringle 15, Tenorio 9, Ayaay 9, Devance 5, Chan 5, Dillinger 4, Caperal 4, Mariano 3, Salado 0
Quarters: 17-21, 39-33, 66-49, 84-71