By REYNALD MAGALLON
Rain or Shine and Ginebra are hoping to not follow the same mistakes of their fellow twice-to-beat teams in the other bracket as they aim to finish their quarterfinals assignments quickly in the PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup at the Ynares Center in Antipolo on Friday, May 15.
The Elasto Painters take on the perennial contenders San Miguel Beermen in the first offering at 5:15 p.m. while the Kings take on the challenges from one of the dark horses of the league in Phoenix in the second game at 7:30 p.m.
ROS is hoping to flaunt the same form it had during its 7-0 win streak although it would be a tough task against SMB which is coming into the playoffs on a three-game winning streak.
The Elasto Painters defeated the Beermen, 116-112 although the latter was still with Justin Patton as an import. With Bennie Boatwright, SMB looked like a different team.
“They have better cohesion with Boatwright, better scorer than their import when we first played them. He will always be a matchup problem,” said ROS head coach Yeng Guiao.
But while the Gilas naturalized player candidate should pose problems, the fiery mentor believed the Elasto Painters also hold an edge against the Beermen — something that SMB coach Leo Austria is also well aware of.
“But meron din kaming, kumbaga, factors going for us. The real advantage of San Miguel is the experience they have, unlike us na relatively mga bata pa. But that is not an excuse for us not to pull this through pero malaking bagay talaga ‘yung twice-to-beat kami,” said Guiao.
“Kailangan ma-contain namin ‘yung kanilang running game. Imagine, in five seconds nakaka-score sila. We have to sprint back and stop the ball. Kung masasabayan namin ang energy nila we’ll have better chances,” said Austria on the other hand.
Meanwhile, Ginebra should be the favorite in its matchup against Phoenix although head coach Tim Cone believes his team cannot just sit on its laurels and expect the Fuel Masters to fold.
For one, the vastly-improved Ricci Rivero and new import Jonathan Williams can form a formidable duo to lead Phoenix against Justin Brownlee and the rest of the Kings.
