Into the PBA Commish Cup Playoffs (Part 2.2)

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San Mig Coffee Mixers (4) vs Meralco Bolts (5)
No other playoff match-up could be as 50-50 as this one not only because of their "too close to call" rankings but also because one team is rising steadily while the other is suffering from a malady of injuries and off-court issues. As a basketball fan, we're quite pleased that the Mixers are back in the hunt to defend their title after a slow star and that the Bolts, dismissed as a team that's clearly tanking to get a better seeding at next year's PBA draft after the lopsided Sol Mercado trade, are back in the Playoffs.

PG Mark Barocca vs Chris Ross
It's going to be speed versus speed, with a slight edge to Ross for his defensive tenacity and rebounding. Barocca's not too shabby either and for the Mixers to win they'll need the former FEU stalwart to deliver offensively and defensively. It's going to be interesting on how these two will guard each other. Ross can't give Barocca too much daylight as the latter has shown an improvement from the outside. Barocca can't stick too closely to Ross because the Fil-Am will just blitz his way to the rim for the finish or a kickout to his shooters. Ross can guard Barocca straight up, but Barocca will have to watch out for Ross' outside passes so the entire Mixers will have to chip in to play safety at all times.

Adv. Meralco


SG PJ Simon/ James Yap vs Ronjay Buenafe/ Mark Cardona  
Simon lost some of his teeth. Yap is battling flu and off-court, crazy ex drama. Buenafe is shooting the lights out with renewed confidence thanks to his SMART Gilas stint. Cardona, in the last two games, just rediscovered The Artist Formerly Known As MacMac. These scorers will undoubtedly cancel each other out, and that's pretty much how it will go the rest of the way. If Mixers coach Tim Cone can squeeze anything out of rookie Alex Mallari, it would be of a great help if only to spell Simon (if Yap's still on a funk).

Adv. Tied

SF Joe DeVance vs Sunday Salvacion
What if Salvacion, who was playing with College of St. Benilde at the time, hooked up with showbiz handlers? Would he be the NCAA equivalent of James Yap and would he receive the same amount of success? To say that Salvacion is "just" a shooter would be ignorant, as this guy used to perform highlight worthy dunks (think "tosses the ball in the air from halfcourt, takes his jersey off while on the run, jumps, catches and dunks" highlight worthy) in college that would send crowds in a frenzy. He also had elite range. What he didn't have was boyish looks, showbiz fanfare or media exposure (NCAA TV earlier this decade is <<<< UAAP). But it's a different story now, and Salvacion has found a niche in the Bolts' offense as one of its designated long range bombers. Sadly, he'll be guarded by DeVance who isn't exactly a lockdown defender, but we're talking 6"1 versus 6"8 here with both guys having just about the same speed on the court. Also, Salvacion won't be able to keep DeVance from getting to his spots so that could force Bolts coach Ryan Gregorio to switch Hodge early.

Adv. SMC

PF Marc Pingris vs Reynel Hugnatan/ Cliff Hodge 
We love what we've been seeing from Pingris this conference despite undoubtedly being pushed to the point of exhaustion given the way he plays and his extra time with Gilas Pilipinas. The Mixers' heart-and-soul, Pingris, has been improving on the block and is starting to throw his weight around with legit, back-to-the-basket post moves. Of course, he'll have competition with grizzled veteran Hugnatan who is arguably the Patron Saint for Rain or Shine guys like Ronnie Matias, Larry Rodriguez and even Pingris' Mixers' teammate Leo Najorda. On the hustle department, Pingris will also have his hands full with the "teeth removing" Hodge who is as scrappy as they come.

Adv. Meralco

C Denzel Bowles vs Eric Dawson
While Bowles has been rounding back into 2012 form, the playing field has become a lot tougher to dominate than it was before. There are giants (7"3 Sundov), monsters (Dawson and Air21's Dunnigan) and fleet-footed hybrid forwards (Alaska's Dozier, TNT's Jordan) playing in the PBA and we're not too sure about Bowles' chances this time around. One on one, Dawson will be more than a handful for Bowles. While Dawson isn't the banger that another big time scoring import Dunnigan is, he pretty much has all the "big man camp" moves in his arsenal and has a jumper to boot. In the games we've seen from Bowles, he's become more of a face-up scorer and jumpshooter now which wont help the Mixers versus the Bolts. They need to take Dawson out of the equation early, which pretty much reduces the Bolts to a very undersized team with no legit center. Thankfully, the Mixers have Yancy de Ocampo in the fold to provide some handy six extra fouls.

Adv. Meralco

Has Coach Tim Cone learned his lessons of playing his stars to the ground? Or will he stick to what has made him a Hall of Famer to the very end? Teams like Rain or Shine and now Meralco that use their benches to the hilt make Cone look unimaginative on the floor specially when his team falls behind.Very interesting to note that the Bolts pretty much starts their "second unit" (Buenafe, Salvacion, Hugnatan) and subs in their traditional, halfcourt starters (Cardona, Mark Borboran, Hodge) mid game. Too close to call.