By REYNALD MAGALLON
San Miguel and Converge aim for a late Christmas Day treat when it seeks a quick passage to the semis against separate foes in the PBA Season 50 Philippine quarterfinals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Thursday, Dec. 25.
Both armed with twice-to-beat armors, the Beermen battle the NLEX Road Warriors in the first offering at 5:15 p.m. while the FiberXErs take on the dangerous Barangay Ginebra Kings in the main event at 7:30 p.m.
San Miguel, the defending champion of the all-Filipino conference, is coming in the heavy favorites in the titanic matchup though NLEX is surely a no pushover with Robert Bolick, fresh off a gold medal conquest in the Southeast Asian Games, expected to be back in the fold.
Bolick’s gig, however, proved to be too costly for the Road Warriors as after a relatively successful start that saw them jockey for position for the top spot, they spiraled down to No.7 following a three-game losing skid to end the elimination.
As a result, NLEX will have to battle for its tournament lives against the powerhouse SMB team which featured June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez, Marcio Lassiter, Don Trollano, Jericho Cruz and Juami Tiongson.
On the same plight with the Road Warriors are the Kings, who will be locking horns with the young and hungry FiberXers led by their super rookie Juan Gomez de Liano.
“Christmas Day games are tough, and they’re hard to lock into. That’s one of the challenges of being a coach, player of Ginebra or just being a Ginebra team,” said Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
“You’re being out in these situations a lot but again, it’s out of our control. We just deal with what we can deal with so I think our guys are gonna get ready,” he added.
And the Kings should indeed be ready for Converge which finally has its best chance of finally claiming the semis breakthrough after missing in all of their chances last season.
Aside from Gomez de Liano, the FiberXers will be leaning on the twin towers of Justin Arana and Justine Baltazar along with wingmen Schonny Winston and Alec Stockton.
Ginebra, for its part, will have Scottie Thompson, Stephen Holt, Japeth Aguilar and RJ Abarrientos to lead the charge.
Should both Ginebra and NLEX win, they would be forcing the rubber-match Game 2 on Dec. 28.
