Dates July 16–25, 1981 Radio network DWXL | Television MBS | |
The 1981 PBA Open Conference Finals was the best-of-5 basketball championship series of the 1981 PBA Open Conference, and the conclusion of the conference's playoffs.
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The Toyota Super Diesels defeated Crispa Redmanizers in a five-game series to win their seventh PBA title and finally ended frustrations of last season's three runner-up finishes. New Toyota head coach Edgardo Ocampo won his first title with his new team and second championship in his PBA coaching career. Toyota and Crispa played for the 10th and last time in a finals series.
Game 5
The fifth and deciding game in the best-of-five title series had more than 25,000 fans at the big dome, the fitting climax had NBA referees Lee Jones and James Capers officiate the match. The game was close from start to finish and was deadlocked several times, it was tied for the last time at 97-all with 3:15 to go, after Ramon Fernandez scores to give Toyota a 99-97 lead, a Crispa turnover resulted to Atoy Co given a technical foul, Fernandez converted the technical free throw to make it 100-97 for the Super Diesels at the 2:00 mark, another turnover by the Redmanizers, this time from an offensive foul from Co gives Toyota the ball possession, with 1:20 left, Toyota import Andrew Fields scores with a foul from James Hardy, Fields sank his bonus shot for a three-point play, 103-97 for Toyota. On the next play, Bernie Fabiosa slips and lost the ball to Francis Arnaiz, both teams had a series of misses in the final minute, with 20 seconds to go, Toyota freezes the ball to end the game in jubilation.
Rosters
(*) Import