THE Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup gets going on Wednesday but San Miguel Beer (SMB), fresh from its historic conquest just last week of the Philippine Cup, will not see action until February 20 when it battles the Mahindra Enforcer of Manny Pacquiao.
I do not see any reason for SMB not to defeat Mahindra 11 days or so from now en route to collecting a fifth straight win since the Beermen’s 4-0 sweep of Alaska to capture the All-Filipino crown by an incredible 4-3 on February 3.
Even if Mahindra, formerly Kia, might again unwrap a man mountain the way it did last year when it had a giant (was that really a 7-foot-4 from Puerto Rico?)—rules allow only Pacquiao’s team to field an import with unlimited height for being a cellar-dweller—I don’t think SMB will bow.
With the 6-foot-10 June Mar Fajardo now almost 100-percent knee injury-free, SMB looks almost invincible at this stage, if we go by local talent. In fact, if the Beermen should be seriously gunning for a grand slam—and by all means, they should—that would be as natural as yawning for one newly risen from bed in the morning.
As the league’s first conference champions, the Redshirts of Coach Leo Austria are naturally the only team in a position to steal basketball’s bonanza of three crowns staked every year since the PBA’s birth in 1975.
SMB almost hit the Slam last year but somehow, it blew it.
After winning the 2015 All-Filipino on a last-second triple by Arwind Santos—also against Alaska happening also in a Game Seven—SMB would horribly absorb a bizarre nosedive and got ousted, finishing ninth in the second conference. It wasn’t only ugly. Embarrassing, too.
Well, still, SMB had taken the punch with poise because it rallied somewhat mightily in the third and final conference by dominating the Governors’ Cup—by an overwhelming 4-0 rout of, yes, Alaska anew for a flourishing 2-1 finish last year.
In short, what San Miguel did was right the wrong in the Commissioner’s Cup, which was choosing the wrong imports successively. When it got the right one finally—Arizona Reid—it was a bit too late. Elimination was but a breadth away.
SMB’s repair mode had stretched into the Governors’ Cup, when Austria stuck with Reid as SMB import. Superbly, it paid off, resulting in that ignominious 4-0 wipeout of Alaska.
The monumental mistake in the 2015 Commissioner’s Cup seems to have been a thing of the past, totally. For, already, Austria has taken hold, as early as two weeks or so ago, of a 6-foot-9 import named Tyler Wilkinson, who could double as a power forward and a center more than ready to sub for Fajardo.
Austria’s famous words when he steered SMB to a 100-89 Game Six win that tied Alaska at 3-3 were: “We are not after the bonus now but rather, history.”
He got his wish—the 96-89 Game Seven victory making San Miguel Beer the first team in world professional history to climb out of a 0-3 rut to win four straight and clinch a crown in a race-to-four series.
Now, will the hiss of history be in Austria’s mind as he sets out his campaign for the Commissioner’s Cup crown—a San Miguel Beer grand slam becoming the SMC organization’s third after San Miguel Beer in 1989 and San Mig Coffee in 2014? If ever, unprecedented. Miracles are so replete in sporting battles that even Austria, in yet another run of his famous quotes after SMB’s 110-104 Game Four win in overtime that cut Alaska’s lead to 3-1, has said: “Miracles do happen. I believe in miracles.”
And, yes, one believing in miracles believes in God. Ardently. Like Austria.
THAT’S IT. The Peugeot Philippines Tennis Open, unfurled last October by Palawan Gov. Pepito Alvarez to find new talents from the grassroots, has just completed its qualifying phases in Nueva Ecija, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Cebu and Metro Manila. According to Peugeot PH President Glen Dasig, champions in men’s and women’s singles, and in men’s and women’s doubles in those qualifiers will battle the nation’s Philta-seeded players next month, the winners earning an all-expense-paid trip to Paris for the French Open in May. Cheers!