TAKE your pick: TNT or Barangay Ginebra.

Tropang Giga versus Gin Kings.

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson versus Justin Brownlee.

Jojo Lastimosa against Tim Cone.

The top two teams in the PBA Governors’ Cup — TNT and Barangay Ginebra — take the floor to begin their much-awaited best-of-seven title showdown starting Easter Sunday, April 9 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Analysts said it will a “Match Made in Heaven”.

TNT earned the right to meet Ginebra following an inspiring 107-92 win over Meralco last Friday to win their best-of-five semifinal series, 3-1.

Earlier, Ginebra defeated multi-titled San Miguel Beer, 87-85, to complete a three-game sweep in their own semis series.

In the Governors’ Cup finals, TNT is the top seeded team but the reigning champion, Ginebra, is easily the crowd favorite.

TNT coach Jojo Lastimosa, however, doesn’t mind taking the underdog role in the championship series that begins after the Holy Week break,

Despite TNT’s 114-105 win over Ginebra in their lone encounter in the elimination round, Lastimosa knows his team faces an uphill battle against a Ginebra side being handled by his former coach Tim Cone.

“I have nothing to lose. Our team has nothing to lose,” said the 59-year-old Lastimosa after TNT’s series-clinching victory over Meralco.

Everybody is rallying for them (Kings), and everybody is expecting Ginebra to win this championship, anyway,” said Lastimosa in an interview posted at the official PBA website.

“We’re only here to probably spoil the party, and hopefully we could come up with a good game like what we did in this series. We got Rondae on my side and I’m OK with it,” he added.

The Kings finished the eliminations as the No. 3 seeded team behind TNT and San Miguel Beer.

But the Kings have turned into an entirely different team in the semis.

They are so far undefeated in the playoffs in an amazing run that included a three-game sweep of No. 2 San Miguel in the semifinals.

And the Kings did it despite the absence of top players Japeth Aguilar,who is nursing an injury, and LA Tenorio, who has been diagnosed with colon cancer.

Actually, Ginebra is gunning for a second straight championship as a fitting follow-up to their after Commissioner’s Cup romp where they toppled the Hong Kong-based guest team, Bay Area Dragons.

Still, Lastimosa and the Tropang Giga are hoping to give the Kings a highly-competitive and interesting title series.

“Going into this series, I like our chances. Our players are playing well, and we’ve been winning games with our shares in scoring. And right now we’re defending really well. So we really need to play offense and defense in this championship series. I think the guys are going to be ready,” stressed Lastimosa.

He also cited the strong game of Hollis-Jefferson, who scored 42 points on 13-of-29 shooting and 11 rebounds in 42 minutes of action against the hard-fighting Bolts.

Calvin Oftana finished with 21 points, Mikey Williams added 17 points and RR Pogoy had 16 points.

KJ McDaniels led Meralco’ s losing effort with 37 points on 15-of-25 shooting while adding 12 rebounds in 45 minutes on the floor for coach Norman Black.

Aaron Black had 19 points, seven assists and five rebounds while Chris Banchero and Chris Newsome chipped in 11 points each.

TNT outrebounded Meralco, 46-39, while Bolts had more assists than the Tropang Giga with 27-19.

Game April 9:

(Smart Araneta Coliseum)
6 p.m. — Ginebra vs. TNT