MANILA -- Barangay Ginebra survived the repeated rallies of San Miguel Beer to post a 102-96 win and take Game 1of the 2008-09 Motolite-Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Fiesta Conference finals Wednesday at the Araneta Coliseum.

The Kings had to weather the Beermen’s uprising in the second half to secure the win and take a 1-0 lead in their best-of-seven championship series.

Jayjay Heltebrand, top candidate for the conference’s Best Player award, registered a game-high 21 points to go along with six rebounds and seven assists.

Cyrus Baguio and Ronald Tubid chipped in 17 and 14 points respectively off the bench for Ginebra.

“Suwerte lang kami tonight because we shot pretty well,” said Kings mentor Jong Uichico, who also drew 13 markers each from Paul Artadi and import David Noel.

“We were able to make the response whenever they have streak of points and I think that was the key in this game,” he added.

“We were not mentally prepared in this game,” said Beermen head coach Siot Tanquingcen. “Hopefully we can do better next game.”

BK takes third place
Burger King demolished Rain or Shine, 132-118, to win the third third-place honor.

Arwind Santos led the Whoppers in double figures with 27 points while Gary David and Shawn Daniels scored in 17 and 16 markers respectively.

“Third place is good enough performance for the team,” said Whoppers coach Yeng Guiao. “This is our first conference together and half of the team is new. I think there’s a big room of improvement for the team.”

Mark Isip had career-high 27 points while Ryan Arana tallied also a personal-best of 24 for the Elasto Painters.