The San Miguel Beermen entered Wednesday night’s game against the Alaska Aces without prized center June Mar Fajardo, Ronald Tubid, Ryan Arana, and Brian Heruela, so it’s okay to expect them to have a relatively more difficult time.
But who cares, it’s supposedly just an elimination round game. They can drop it anyway since they are incomplete or not in full-strength. What matters is the playoffs right?
Well, that’s supposedly.
Knowing the Beermen, Wednesday night’s game was a far more different one. Sure, it’s a new conference, and a new chapter for both teams, but the game certainly felt like it was more than just an elimination round game.
San Miguel, at 3-2, was coming off a loss at the hands of the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, and wanted to bounce back even if the team was not at full-strength.
Alaska, meanwhile, was on a four-game winning run and was unbeaten with import Shane Edwards. With Fajardo and a handful of backcourt players out, it looked like the Aces will have just a slightly less difficult of a challenge at first glance.
Except it did not pan out that way.
San Miguel was relentless from the get-go, and led from start to finish. The Beermen were red-hot from deep, making 17-for-37 three-pointers. The team also dished out 28 assists and had six players score in double-digits.
“We started with Rain or Shine. It is a tough four-game stretch. We have a goal in this little stretch and we knew we couldn’t lose back to back games,” Chris Ross said. “Without June Mar, we knew we all had to step up and we all did.”
The way San Miguel had been so dominant in the game caught most people by surprise, even the team’s own head coach Leo Austria.
“We were not expecting that we are going to play well like this. I am a little bit worried at the start of the game (because) we are plagued with a lot of injuries,” Austria shared.
“Before this game bothered ako dahil relaxed na relaxed sila. Buti ginagawa nila nagpe-pacing sila. Alaska is hard to beat because of their pressing defense and (teams) are afraid of them. Ang napansin ko sa kanila, wala silang kapressure-pressure, relaxed sila just like in the championship game na akala mo hindi pang-finals yung body language nila.”
“In the last three practices namin, medyo nagsave sila ng energy. Medyo petiks-petiks lang sila. But alam ko ginagawa (nila), nagpe-preserve sila ng energy dahil lalo na kanina, halos wala silang labasan.”
Well, the decisive win did not only surprise almost everyone but also shattered what’s left of skepticism or doubt saying the Beermen cannot dominate when they are not at full-strength or when they are without the best player in the PBA today.
A 116-96 annihilation against the team that had always been part of the super teams conversation over the past two seasons (not to mention consistently being the only team to be Beermen’s finals competitor in the last three championship series the latter has played in) tells a lot about how the Beermen has set and are continuing to raise the Proverbial bar.
“We have a really deep team and we are really talented. Having him there helps but without him, we just all have to step up even more without him and show what we are capable of,” Ross added.
This is nothing to take away from Alaska — or the other 11 teams in general — but the victory the Beermen scored only made things even clearer: San Miguel holds that “team-to-beat” tag; the team has shattered whatever is left of doubts and has set the standard over the past five conferences.
“I think there is a lot of truth to that,” Ross said. “We won three out of the last four conferences. June Mar is there and every team has to gear up and have a game plan to stop him. Then there are other guys on the court, we are a deep team and we complement each other. Even if we have this target on our backs, we will go out there and play very hard.”
And if that win still does not convince skeptics, only the basketball gods know what will.
