THERE is yet another history in the making insofar as San Miguel Beer’s bid for the PBA Philippine Cup is concerned.
This one’s not a not-so-appetizing piece of basketball lore for the Beermen.
For the record, the Beermen winning the Finals series would make them the first to score four straight victories in this most prestigious of all yearly conferences.
To the uninitiated, the Philippine Cup used to be known as the All-Filipino to differentiate it from the two other conferences—the Commissioner’s Cup and the season-ending Governors’ Cup. Both conferences feature an imported player each to every team in the PBA fold.
With a Philippine Cup victory that pundits have actually predicted long before the season began, SMB coach Leo Austria would cherish this achievement with much fondness.
For, if I can read his mind, Austria, if and when successful in piloting SMB to victory, would surely dedicate the feat to his wife now recuperating well from—thank God—a major surgery.
SMB’s Finals rival is yet to be known, even as Magnolia is set to gun for that distinction on Tuesday (March 20) after outclassing NLEx on Sunday for a 3-2 lead in the other half of the race-to-four semifinal duel.
The Hotshots ripped Sunday’s game wide open, finally exploiting the absence of Kevin Alas in the payoff period in mounting a no-look-back blazing breakaway.
Alas locked his knee just seconds into Game 5 and was out of the match for good.
Aldrech Ramos, Marc Barroca and Ian Sangalang keyed Magnolia’s 87-78 victory, putting NLEX on the ropes as the Road Warriors face a do-or-die 2-3 situation in Game 6.
Should Magnolia prevail, it will be another sister-team act in the league’s 43-year history as both the Hotshots and the Beermen belong to the San Miguel Corp. conglomerate.
The same situation happened last year when SMB and sister-team Ginebra tangled in the Govenors’ Cup.
When Ginebra defeated SMB, it deflected the Beermen’s record-tying second Grand Slam after their first Slam in 1989.
So that should a Magnolia-SMB Finals scenario materialize, the Hotshots emerging champions would frustrate the Beermen’s historic bid of four consecutive Philippine Cup triumphs.
It’s getting to be exciting—and terrifyingly thrilling. For SMB, that is.