By REYNALD MAGGALON
The first to blink loses and the one with great poise and guts wins.
With the exciting twists and turns through the first four games, the PBA Philippine Cup Finals have so far lived beyond the expectations and imagination.
What was initially deemed to be the most lopsided Finals affair has now turned into a war of attrition as San Miguel and Meralco brace for another dogfight in Game 5 of the best-of-seven series at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Friday, June 14.
Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m. with the two teams eyeing a pivotal 3-2 lead.
The Bolts were always the first to strike, taking Games 1 and 3 but the Beermen have also displayed great response in Games 2 and 4 to reduce the series to a virtual best-of-three affair.
For the first time in the series, however, SMB have finally dictated the tempo of the contest and finally reached beyond 100-point mark – a domain where the team is currently undefeated through 13 games so far in the conference.
A lot of that offensive explosion was behind the trio of June Mar Fajardo, Marcio Lassiter and CJ Perez although the Beermen got some good lifts off the bench from the ailing Terrence Romeo and Vic Manuel.
SMB head coach Jorge Gallent said that controlling the number of possessions have been key for the Beermen in finally asserting the pace they wanted to play.
“Yung first three games they were dictating the game because they were averaging 16 more shots than us. Now we’re looking at that I think they had just one extra shot and that’s one big factor,” said Gallent
“If a team averages 16 more shots than you, it’s really hard to beat and hard to win. The players really focused on that and getting the rebounds kasi lahat ng extra points is coming off offensive boards,” he added.
Getting lured into playing SMB’s style, Meralco head coach Luigi Trillo stressed that the Bolts cannot just let the Beermen get their rhythm offensively.
“We just can’t let some of those guys explode. Mario was catching and shooting. They have so many weapons around. We have to be better,” Trillo, whose Bolts had to rely heavily on the scoring of Chris Newsome just to keep up with the Beermen’s offensive might.
Newsome along with Chris Banchero did everything they could with the former exploding for a career-high 40 points and the latter adding 21 but those were just not enough if they couldn’t get their defense to limit the Beermen.
“It’s going to take great effort from us to defend them not only one-on-one but with five guys involved whether it’s the pick-and-roll, whether it’s in the post. We will bounce back. we will be ready. It’s one day off, it’s a foot race Friday,” Trillo vowed.
