In his first shot at a PBA title, Allen Durham had the door slammed on his face. It came from a three-point shot from Justin Brownlee that Durham tried his best to stop. For an entire year, Durham worked on his game even more, knowing that all he wanted was another shot at it, possibly against Ginebra once more.
In the first four games of the 2017 OPPO PBA Governors' Cup Finals, the two-time reigning Best Import of the Conference is showing that he isn't taking this opportunity for granted.
Durham has averaged 29.5 points, 18.5 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 2 blocks in the series. He carried the Bolts in the fourth quarter on the way to victory Game 3 and then scored the winning basket in Game 4. However, he deflected the praise and instead harped on the contributions of his teammates in their two wins.
"Fortunately, tonight, our guys were hitting shots and we had a lot of help. I had a lot of help," Durham said. "It's a lot easier to get to the basket, to get to the rim. (Ginebra's) such a big team, you know, so they got to pick their poison. They have to help under the basket or we stretch them out. Just fortunate that we're hitting shots right now."
Durham was a matchup nightmare for Ginebra as he was too fast for their bigger guys and too strong for their wings but the offense of Meralco was not all about him. In fact, he passed up a good look inside late in the game to give the ball to Baser Amer who was not having a great performance in the Finals so far. Durham's trust paid off as the guard nailed a huge baseline triple to give Meralco a two-point lead.
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"I just focus on making the right play, whether that's attacking the basket that I have to score myself or just finding my teammates in the right spot," said Durham.
"Baser, I just told him to keep playing, keep playing, and keep shooting," Durham said. "I had four guys on me and he [Amer] was wide open and I just had to trust in him and just passed him the ball and he knocked it down. They said Chris Ross was the Most Improved Player, but if I had a vote, I would have given it to Baser that's for sure. He made the biggest play of the game, he made that three and I'm proud of him."
