Slim Chance of Victory in Game 7: Jayson Castro's Perspective

According to him, one of the pinnacles of Jayson Castro’s long career was TNT’s recent victory in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup. Castro thinks the Tropang Giga had little chance of success even after they defeated Barangay Ginebra, even though the Gin Kings forced a decisive seventh game.

Castro said, “Our thinking was [Game 6] was already do-or-die for us,” in Filipino. We believed that Ginebra’s victory would give them the momentum necessary to defeat us in Game 7, making it quite likely that we would lose. Then many new players have never played in a Game 7 as well. Thus, I advised them against thinking that we could afford to drop one game simply because we were leading the series.

Everyone contributed last Friday as TNT won 97-93, becoming just the second non-San Miguel Corp. club to triumph in the previous 16 conferences. Although Mikey Williams’ long-range three-pointer gave the Tropang Giga the game’s winning margin, Castro also played a significant role in Ginebra’s fourth-quarter comeback by retaliating against some of the Gin Kings’ baskets.