MIXERS GO FOR CLINCHER
San Mig Super Coffee will go for the jugular and will try to inch its way closer to the Grand Slam as it collides with Talk ‘N Text in Game 3 of their best-of-five semifinal series in the 2014 PLDT Home Telpad PBA Governors’ Cup Monday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“We got a lot of help from a lot of people tonight. That’s been the story of our team this whole year. We get it off from a lot of different sources,” said Coffee Mixers coach Tim Cone, moments after his squad took a commanding 2-0 lead with a 93-85 Game 2 victory last Saturday.
Guys like Mark Barroca, Joe Devance, Ian Sangalang, Justin Melton, and Alex Mallari have recently stepped up in the past two games for San Mig, as the team’s stars like James Yap and Peter June Simon are nursing injuries but are playing through the pain.
“We’ll just struggle through it,” Cone said.
But though they are just a win short of making their fourth straight trip to the Finals, the multi-titled American mentor still kept his boys on their toes as they brace for a tough Tropang Texters fightback.
“This team is capable of putting up three really good games. We’re gonna see of we could get out there and get one of them,” said Cone. “The old cliche is that two games don’t make a series. It’s a best-of-five. It’s only two and we need only one, and if any team is capable of coming back, (Talk ‘N Text) is. We’d rather be in this position than the other one. We’re feeling blessed that we’re up 2-0.”
Game time is at 8 p.m.
On the other side of the fence, Talk ‘N Text will aim to be only the fourth team to come back and triumph after being down from a 0-2 hole and Jimmy Alapag knows that there will no longer be any room for errors come Monday.
“We’ve been in this position before and I have complete trust in the guys in the locker room,” he said. “But before you get three (wins), you’ve got to get the first one.”
Talk ‘N Text has been in the wrong end of the history books with this one, as they blew a 2-0 lead in their 2009-2010 Philippine Cup quarterfinal series against Ginebra.
This time, Alapag hopes to stage their own comeback starting on Game 3.
“When you’re playing a champion team like San Mig, you just can’t afford to make that mistake or slow starts. It’s gonna be important for us on Monday to have a strong start and play a full 48-minute game,” he said.
Alapag added, “Our focus right now is to get focused on Monday night and try to play a great game to get us back in the series.” (RL)
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