SAN Miguel Beer coach Leo Austria is not one to sulk after his team bowed to Barangay Ginebra in the opener of their PBA Season 50 Philippine Cup semifinals last Sunday.
Instead, Austria prefers to focus on the positives and address some nagging concerns from that defeat going into Game 2 of the best-of-seven series on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“Game 2, will definitely be an exciting game for us,” said Austria in mixed Filipino and English. “It was like a wake-up call, and my players know how difficult it is to fall behind 0-2.”
The Gin Kings carved out a 99-90 victory in the opener after drawing excellent performances from RJ Abarrientos, Scottie Thompson, the surprising Ralph Cu and Japeth Aguilar, and Norbert Torres, who took on the chores of trying to stifle June Mar Fajardo.
Fajardo, however, still got away with a monster game of 27 points and 23 rebounds in 30 minutes of action, but aside from Cjay Perez and Marcio Lassiter, SMB received little production from the rest of the roster.
That included the Beermen’s vaunted bench mob — led by Mo Tautuaa, Don Trollano and Jericho Cruz — which entered the contest averaging a league-best 57.5 points per game (ppg) but managed only 29. The poor showing was compounded by the team’s 15-of-31 output from the free-throw line.
Austria explained that Trollano played through a sore back and Cruz a nagging hamstring issue as the two combined for just nine points. But the bigger problem was the shoulder injury of back-up center Mo Tautuaa, who was limited to just eight minutes and three points.
“I really shouldn’t have used Mo since he hadn’t practiced for a week,” related Austria. “I talked to him and told him that even if he could just help on defense and rebounds, that would be enough because we wanted to preserve June Mar.”
On the other hand, Ginebra coach Tim Cone knows SMB is very capable of bouncing back, especially Trollano, who went into the series averaging a little over 16 ppg.
“Game 2 is going to be a completely different game. He’s probably gonna come out and go 10-for-15 in the next game. We’re just going to control what we can control. June Mar had a great game and Don had an off-game tonight,” said Cone after Sunday’s match. “So it could just flip-flop the next game. Don could have the big game.”
Austria is putting his trust in his entire team.
“I’ve already talked to them, and we can see that no one is hanging their head — everyone is upbeat. They’re excited to bounce back because they know it will be much harder for us if we lose again,” he said. / PBA.PH