THERE will be a deciding Game 7 in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup finals, after all.

Myles Powell and the Bay Area Dragons made sure about it.

Powell scored 29 points, including the Dragons’ last six points, in Bay Area’s series-tying 87-84 win over Barangay Ginebra before another record crowd of 22,361 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Japeth Aguilar of Ginebra had a chance to send the game into overtime, but he missed his three-point shot as time expired.

Powell, who took the place of the injured Andrew Nicholson, is now 9-0 when playing as import for the Hongkong-based Dragons.

With the win, the Dragons tied the series at 3-3 and forced a seventh and deciding Game 7 at the Philippine Arena in Bulacan on Sunday, Jan.15.

It was a close and exciting game throughout.

The Dragons took an eight-point lead at halftime with Powell and Blankley scoring 14 points each.

Bay Area is still ahead 66-64 after three quarters.

Aguilar opened the fourth quarter with four straight points, the first two tying the score at 66-all and the next two giving Ginebra the lead, 68-66, after a long while.

Then Christian Standgardinger took over with five straight points of his own, including a three-point play for a 73-66 advantage for the Gin kings.

A 6-1 run by Bay Area made it 72-74 but Brownlee hit a difficult turnaround jumper for 76-72 count that forced the Dragons to call a timeout.

Back-to-back three-pointers by Powell against Standhardinger’s two-pointer made it 78-78 with 7:05 left.

It was close from there.

A driving layup by the 6-1 Powell put the Dragons ahead, 83-82, with 4:50 left.

Ginebra had several chances to put the game away but Stanley Pringle and Nards Pinto missed three-point shots that could have turned the game around.

Hayden Blankey added 23 points, including six triples, and seven rebounds and Glen Yang contributed 10 points, three rebounds and two assists.

Songwei Zhu also had 10 points.

Best import winner Justin Brownlee was Ginebra’s main man with a triple-double of 37 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists in nearly 48 minutes.

Brownlee had 16 points in the third quarter alone.

Aguilar and Standhardinger finished with 22 points a piece.

But Best Player of the Conference awardee Scottie Thompson was limited to only eight points on 3-of-9 shooting in 50 minutes while veteran LA Tenorio was held scoreless while missing all his five three-point attempts.

Pringle, who had 20 points in ginebra’s 101-92 win in Game 6, managed only eight points.

The scores:

Bay Area (87) – Powell 29, Blankley 23, Yang 10, Zhu 10, Lam 9, Liu 4, Reid 2, Zheng 0, Ju 0
Ginebra (84) – Brownlee 37, J.Aguilar 12, Standhardinger 12, Thompson 8, Pringle 8, Malonzo 4, Pinto 3, Tenorio 0, Gray 0.
Quarterscores: 25-20, 50-42, 66-64, 87-84.

The results:

Game 1 –Ginebra 96, Bay Area 81.
Game 2 –Bay Area 99, Ginebra 82.
Game 3 –Ginebra 89, Bay Area 82
Game 4–Bay Area 94, Ginebra 86.
Game 5– Ginebra 101, Bay Area 91.
Game 6 — Bay Area 87, Ginebra 84
(Best-of-seven series tied, 3-3). 

Game Sunday:

(Philippine Arena)
5:45 p.m. — Bay Area vs. Ginebra