Rain or Shine looks to foil Beer-acle encore from San Miguel
If there’s one team which can come back from a series deficit, it’s San Miguel.
With their historic rally against Alaska back in the Philippine Cup still fresh in every one’s mind, the Beermen would love to do an encore.
After being down 0-2 in the best-of-5 semifinals series of the 2016 Oppo PBA Commissioner’s Cup, San Miguel
completed the first step, a 104-98 Game 3 win at Philsports Arena on Thursday, in hopes of another “beer-acle” run.
And on Sunday, the team eyes to sustain its flow as it welcomes back Arizona Reid for Game 4 at Smart Araneta Coliseum, which tips off at 5 p.m.
“I think he’s the best available player right now,” said coach Leo Austria, after his all-Filipino crew pulled off the gutsy win in the middle of an emotional stretch stemming from Tyler Wilkerson’s sudden outburst.
“Kung kukuha kami ng player na di namin kilala, there’s a lot of adjustment regarding our plays. Nanalo kami ng all-Filipino, and I think we have a good chance especially our import is AZ na familiar sa ginagawa namin,” he said.
But coach Yeng Guiao is not having any of it.
Squandering a chance to sweep the fancied Beermen, the fiery coach is definite in his belief that it’s still Rain or Shine’s series for the taking.
“We just postponed our trip to the Finals,” he said. “My feeling is we’ll get there only in a longer while. We still feel positive of our chances. Parang may twice-to-beat advantage pa rin kami.”
The Elasto Painters still holds a 2-1 series lead against the Beermen, and Guiao knows that his crew will be hell-bent to prevent another San Miguel victory and in the process, book their ticket back to the Finals.
“We have to find a way to counter their zone defense,” he said. It becomes more difficult the more you postpone it, so pahirap ng pahirap yan hanggang sa hindi mo na maiko-close yan pag hindi mo matapos agad.”
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