PBA GC SF 2 San Miguel Beer vs 3 Ginebra

The Kraken vs The Aguila(r)
(Photo credit: Sports5.ph)

We are going to be in for quite a #TeamSanMiguel slobber knocker of a semifinals clash between sister teams: defending PBA Governor’s Cup champions San Miguel Beer and the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.

In a sense, this is the basketball God’s way of “testing” head coach Tim Cone’s Ginebra squad: should they wish to further themselves and live up to championship expectations, then they will have to go through arguably the most dominant team in the last two seasons. It won’t be easy, since the Beermen appear to have (re)embraced a certain “win now, win big” philosophy anchored on making the most out of 2x PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo’s (still young) basketball career.

So who will win the Best-of-Five affair (which, in all honestly, would most likely command audiences worthy of any PBA Finals or All Star Game all in itself)? Here is our take:

A PBA MVP in question

Spiderman, Spiderman,
wherefore art thou Spiderman?
(Photo courtesy of Sports5)

17 points, 13 rebounds and 4 blocks.

Those are the numbers that the reigning PBA Most Valuable Player Arwind Santos of the Petron Blaze Boosters turned in to vanquish Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in the Quarterfinals of the PBA Governor's Cup. Before that, he was good for 13 points and 8 rebounds. In the Semifinals versus Rain or Shine where he faced a myriad of do-it-all, gung ho forwards he was still good for 9 and 9.

In the recently concluded PBA Governor's Cup Finals versus the San Mig Coffee Mixers, Santos could only muster 8 and 3.

We can live with the 8 points given the team's emphasis in dumping the ball to promising big man Junemar Fajardo and the presence of high scoring import Elijah Millsap. We can live with the lessened participance on offense, but on defense?

Where's the effort? Where's the hustle?

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.