PHILIPPINE Cup finalists San Miguel Beer and Alaska try to salvage what is left of their bid to advance into the next phase as they battle separate opponents on Tuesday in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner’s Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
After dominating the All-Filipino tournament, with the Beermen denying the Aces in a Final series that went the full route, the league’s storied franchises are now in unfamiliar territory—both needing winning streaks to survive the elimination phase.
Of the two, San Miguel Beer is in intensive care as the wards of Head Coach Leo Austria are lingering at the bottom of the standings with a 1-6 win-loss record.
The Beermen face a Barako Bull (4-3) also struggling for a ticket to the next round in the main game at 7 p.m.
The Aces are also in a precarious situation, at 10th spot with a 2-4 record. They face Kia at 4:15 p.m.
San Miguel and Alaska are coming off back-to-back losses and another defeat would push them against the wall. The bottom four teams—after single-round elimination—will be booted out in the midseason conference.
“We just have to focus on the coming game and win,” said Alaska Head Coach Alex Compton, whose team took a heart-breaking 91-93 setback to the Energy. They are up against the Carnival, the team of boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, who are also in danger of missing the next phase.
Kia is coming off a 104-115 loss to Blackwater that dropped to 3-5 to be at No. 9 despite a 49-point explosion from import Peter John Ramos. The setback also denied the Carnival a fitting sendoff for Pacquiao, who left for the US last Saturday to focus on his coming fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 3 in Las Vegas.
A win by Kia will boost the team’s chances of making its first playoff appearance, while a loss will make the route more difficult as the Carnival would need to sweep its last two games against NLEX and Rain or Shine to advance.
Joel Orellana
Image credits: PBA Image