PBA GovCup Finals: Mixers' Reign

You reach, I teach
(Photo courtesy of Sports5)

The San Mig Coffee Mixers have won their 2nd championship under the still young Tim Cone Era after surviving Game 7 of the PBA Governor's Cup Finals versus the Petron Blaze Boosters. When the game was at its closest and nerve-wracking, the Mixers simply buckled down to work while the mighty Boosters began to come undone.

Hats off to both teams for putting one hell of a show. Though the series was unconvincingly dragged to  its limits with some blowout exchanges here and there early, Game 7 showed just how evenly matched both teams are with no team enjoying a clear advantage going into the last 12 minutes.

The Boosters were once again led by prolific import Elijah Millsap and hard working rookie Junemar Fajardo but failed to get the support that we cited in our earlier post. Either by design or something else, the Boosters kept milking Fajardo and Millsap while forgetting to involve their other, potent players from the wings such as Marcio Lassiter, Ronald Tubid, Chris Lutz and Alex Cabagnot. PBA Most Valuable Player Arwind Santos was also left looking like an over rated role player (the entire series actually) who couldn't get into any sort of rhythm on both ends of the court.

Once Fajardo and Millsap were "rope-a-doped" into exhaustion by the brilliant defensive schemes of Cone et. al., it was only a matter of time before the Mixers were finally able to wrestle away the game and the championship. Fittingly, they were led by the most energetic player to grace the hard court in the last few years in PBA Finals MVP Jean Marc Pingris who went from battling Fajardo to pretty much bottling up Millsap in his uncanny, "Beat Korea!" fashion.

We cannot emphasize how great Cone's in and out game adjustments were in this series, schooling rookie counterpart Gee Abanilla and his consultant, NBA talent Todd Purves. While the duo went with the tried and tested "Kobe + Shaq + role players = titles" formula with Millsap and Fajardo playing the lead, Cone answered with an even more complex version of the Triangle which opened up guys from Pingris to 2x PBA MVP James Yap, PJ Simon, Mark Barocca, Joe DeVance and even veteran Yancy de Ocampo.

The Mixers were able to score on all fronts, led by their Best Import Marqus Blakely, but it is on the defensive end where they really put a dazzling display of on court chemistry, high basketball IQ and trust.

While the Boosters were suffering with a series of defensive lapses late, the Mixers were all tied into one beautiful string- helping, covering, switching for one another. Pingris and Blakely appeared to be one person several times late, just knowing where to go and where to help.

Moving forward, the Mixers will enjoy getting a big man of their own through the coming 2013 PBA Draft which will help them fight the Boosters. The return of Allein Maliksi should also bolster their offensive arsenal.

For the Boosters, the foundations have been clearly set. Fajardo has shown that he is ready and capable of being the team's anchor so all they need to do is designate specific roles when it comes to their wing men. They need to be able to reach a level of trust defensively, with guys not trying to play hero ball and trying to go for the hero steals and highlight play blocks. It's not going to be easy given te logjam at the wings, but they'll figure it out.

Something tells us that this is just the first chapter in what promises to be a very long, budding sibling rivalry.