By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Franky Johnson wasn’t shooting the ball as well as he could and almost lost faith in his offensive prowess.
Luckily, Johnson’s confidence returned in the most-opportune time just when Butuan City-Uling Roasters needed him the most.
Down 19-20, Butuan fed the ball to a struggling Johnson and trusted him to deliver over the tall and elite defender in Jeckster Apinan.
With 27 seconds left to do the work, Johnson took on the challenge, danced behind the arc and pulled-off a crossover dribble to create space and drained the game-winning trey to cap-off an amazing Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3×3 President’s Cup Leg 3 finals and prevail against Pasig-Sta. Lucia Realtors.
The slippery guard only chipped in 6 points but he was able to ice the game and bring home the 100,000 for him and his tough Butuan crew.
PBA veteran Chico Lanete also came up big for Butuan after setting the tone offensively, contributing eight big points while Chris De Chavez and JR Alabanza had three points apiece.
“Sinasabi ko sa kanila lagi. Wag niyo i-doubt ‘yung sarili niyo kasi may chance pa tayo. Alam naman naming pwedeng-pwede pa kaming bumawi at ito na nga ‘yung resulta,” said Lanete.
