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Are we absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure that the George King we watched tear through the elimination round is the same guy currently wearing his jersey against Barangay Ginebra? Because I feel like I’m taking crazy pills watching this quarterfinal series.
Everyone wants to talk about June Mar Fajardo looking mortal. We’ve spent an entire week writing the basketball obituaries, discussing Father Time, the mileage on the Kraken’s knees, and how Tim Cone has masterfully schemed the greatest big man in PBA history into a corner. And look, that’s all valid. It’s a compelling narrative. But it is completely missing the massive, 6-foot-6 elephant standing in the middle of the room holding a brick.
The real reason the San Miguel Beermen are staring down the barrel of a 2-1 series deficit, gasping for air against a Ginebra team that smells blood, is that their import has pulled a complete David Copperfield disappearing act.
Let’s quickly rewind to the elimination round. George King was an absolute flamethrower. He was the kind of import you build your entire title belief system around. Out of 12 elimination round games, he scored under 25 points exactly *twice*. He was inevitable. He was getting to his spots, rising over defenders, and giving San Miguel the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card whenever the offense stagnated. He looked like the premium, high-end, luxury-tax version of a PBA import.
Then the playoffs started, and it’s like the Monstars stole his talent.
In three quarterfinal games against Ginebra, King hasn't cracked the 25-point threshold once. Let’s look at the gory details of this three-game stretch, because the box scores look like the scene of a car crash.
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In Game 1, he gives you 21 points on a miserable 9-for-22 shooting from the field with 5 turnovers. In Game 2—the absolute nadir of his PBA stint—he finishes with 13 points on 5-for-9 shooting with 2 turnovers. Let’s just pause there for a second. *Nine shots?* If you are an import in a crucial PBA playoff game and you only take nine shots, there needs to be an immediate, full-scale congressional inquiry into what is happening out there. You’re the import! You’re supposed to be taking nine shots in the first six minutes! Then, in Game 3, he manages 20 points, but it takes him 20 shots (9-for-20) to get there.
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He is operating with all the offensive efficiency of a rusty lawnmower. Which leads us to the ultimate, million-dollar basketball question of this series: Are Jordan Murphy and Stephen Holt playing historic, 2004 Detroit Pistons-level perimeter defense, or is George King just way easier to defend than we all realized?
The answer, like always, is nestled right in the middle, but it leans heavily toward the latter.
First, let’s give flowers to the defense. Stephen Holt is playing out of his mind. He is weaponizing his length, staying attached to King’s hip, and fighting through screens like a guy who is contractually obligated to ruin King's life. And when King tries to drive into the paint to escape Holt, he is immediately met by the sheer physical mass of Jordan Murphy. Murphy isn't just bumping him; he is completely dislodging King from his preferred launchpads. Tim Cone has built a defensive funnel designed specifically to make King uncomfortable, and it is working flawlessly. They are shading him to his weak hand, denying him the ball in his sweet spots, and making him work incredibly hard just to catch a post-entry pass.
But here is the harsh reality about George King that this series is aggressively exposing: his bag might not be as deep as we thought.
During the elimination round, you play a different team every night. The scouting reports are loose, the defensive intensity is at an eight out of ten, and talented isolation scorers can just rhythm-dribble their way into 35 points. But in a playoff series, when you play the same opponent three times in a week, the scouting report becomes a sacred text. Ginebra has downloaded his tendencies. They know he wants to jab-step right and pull up. They know what his counter-move is.
And that is the problem. When Ginebra takes away Plan A, and then aggressively physicalizes Plan B, King doesn’t seem to have a Plan C. Elite playoff scorers—the guys who carry teams to championships—have a counter for the counter. They figure out how to get to the free-throw line 12 times a night when their jumper is broken. They start operating out of the pinch post. They force the action.
King isn't doing any of that. He is settling. He is taking contested, off-balance mid-range jumpers against a set defense, which explains the 9-for-22 and 9-for-20 shooting nights. And in Game 2, he just seemingly accepted his fate and stopped shooting altogether, which is the most terrifying reaction of all.
San Miguel doesn't just need June Mar Fajardo to drink from the Fountain of Youth. They need George King to figure out how to beat a playoff scouting report. If he can't crack the Holt-Murphy code, the Beermen aren't just going to lose this series—they are going to be booking early vacations while wondering if their invincible import was just an elimination round mirage all along.
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