WILL San Miguel Beer (SMB) realize revenge or will TNT win again?
That’s the question going into Wednesday’s Game Two of the fight-for-four series for the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup trophy at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
As per tradition, every title playoff in the league’s 47-year history has always been as complex as our Skyway signage set-up: It’s always been neither here nor there.
You miss your exit because the sign suddenly appears when you least expect it. By the time you see it, you are almost past it.
Or the sign is placed somewhere, the letters too tiny most of the time that they make the near-sighted agonize trying to figure out what’s been written there.
Almost every PBA Finals is also like that. Very unpredictable as in a woman’s mood.
Take Game One of the ongoing PBA Finals.
Even though TNT is the defending champion, SMB has been given the slight edge to prevail in the match-up deemed to be a grueling seven-game marathon.
It was, indeed, going the Beermen’s way in the Finals opener when they zoomed to a 15-point margin before settling for a 49-37 halftime lead after SMB cornerstone June Mar Fajardo unloaded 14 of his 24-point total in the first two quarters.
But then, the wind blew toward TNT’s direction in the third period, speeding to a 66-60 advantage before wresting a 70-64 margin going to the fourth quarter.
When the Tropang Giga made it 79-69 at the 7:27 mark, the Beermen grappled and groped for daylight that finally took shape in the last 120 seconds of the game.
With TNT up, 84-79, on Jayson Castro’s magical reverse stab underneath, SMB was roused from sleep by Fajardo’s jumper, followed by Vic Manuel’s stunning three-point play that knotted the count at 84.
After both sides had swapped misplays, Marcio Lassiter fouled Poy Erram to use up SMB’s maximum six fouls at the 1.6-second mark.
From the TNT timeout, Ryan Reyes was tasked to inbound. That keyed the Tropang Giga’s final killer.
Reyes had deftly inbounded to the weakly-defended Castro, who, upon catching the pass, twice dribbled lightning-quick toward the left flank and, seeing Simon Enciso’s token resistance, fired a not-so-impeded jumper, the ball going straight to the hole just as the final buzzer sounded.
With overtime nixed, TNT took the Finals opener and will now carry a monumental momentum going into tonight’s Game Two encounter.
But the Tropang Giga will play minus their chief strategist Chot Reyes, who will coach Gilas on Thursday (Aug. 25) versus Lebanon in Beirut in the Fiba qualifiers. He will likewise miss Game Three on Friday (Aug. 26).
If that’s not a big plus for San Miguel Beer, what is?
THAT’S IT Congratulations to Princess Superal for winning the Asia-Pacific golf crown last weekend in Jakarta. Long in the hunt for a major trophy the last five years or so, her patience finally paid off and won a whopping P5.5 million ($100,000) in her breakthrough victory. Her win was timely as it came amid the struggles hounding Yuka Saso after the Fil-Japanese won the US Open last year.