San Miguel starts tough grind vs Meralco
San Miguel Beer and Meralco have had their successes in the year about to end, and both try to end it on a positive note as they clash in the mainer of the last PBA play date in 2016 at the Cuneta Astrodome in
Pasay City Wednesday night.
The Beermen, winner of the 2016 all-Filipino tourney, and the Bolts, who made a first-ever finals appearance in the recent Governors Cup, collide at 7 p.m. — the halfway mark of the PBA Philippine Cup elims for both teams.
The defending champs are the tournament pacesetters with a 4-1 win-loss mark while the Bolts are at 10th place with a 2-3 slate.
San Miguel leads the pack but is to start a tough grind that will have the Beermen facing tough contenders Meralco, Blackwater, Barangay Ginebra, Rain or Shine, GlobalPort and TNT KaTropa.
June Mar Fajardo and his teammates won their last three games over Alaska Milk (93-88), Mahindra (94-91) and NLEX (104-80).
Curiously, the Beermen found it tough to hurdle the Floodbuster, struggling all night and barely squeezing out a three-point triumph.
They hope their 24-point rout of NLEX could serve as a springboard as they play a dangerous Meralco side.
The Bolts have a losing record at the moment, but all of their losses could have gone either way. They lost just by two points to Blackwater and Alaska Milk and by four to Phoenix.
They blew third-quarter leads in both their setbacks to Alaska and Phoenix.
“That seems to be a problem. We can’t close out games,” said Meralco coach Norman Black.
“Right now, we’re playing a couple of rookies a lot of minutes, because we want to develop them. I think they’re very good players, and with that, sometimes you’re gonna make some mistakes down the stretch,” said Black, referring to Ed Daquiaog and Jonathan Grey.
As they struggle, SMB coach Leo Austria, meanwhile, is sticking it out with his old core group led by Fajardo, Arwind Santos, Alex Cabagnot, Marcio Lassiter and Chris Ross.
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