With the way San Miguel Beer fulfilled its date with history last week, the oldest and most successful franchise in the Philippine Basketball Association seems poised for more glory in the league’s 41st season.
The Beermen looked anything but a title threat at the start of the Philippine Cup Finals as the Alaska Aces, taking advantage of the absence of injured center June Mar Fajado, buried them into a 3-0 hole no team in a best-of-seven series has survived. But they hung on with two overtime wins and—defying history—finished off the Aces with two impressive victories. Although still not in top shape, Fajardo returned to provide spark and inspiration for the squad.
The final two games of the series showed the big disparity in talent and strength of both squads, which moved into the finals by justifying their top-two positions at the end of the eliminations. The wide-bodied, 6-foot-10 Fajardo, who injured his left knee in the semifinals against Rain or Shine, simply gives the Beermen an unmatched tower of strength in the middle, and the rest of his teammates are more than a match for their Alaska counterparts.
Alaska coach Alex Compton pulled off two unexpected tricks before Game 7 to perhaps throw off the Beermen from their normal routine. But calling three successive timeouts before the start of the game and then fielding a platoon of substitutes didn’t help the Aces’ cause any.
Yancy de Ocampo, who proved an able Fajardo backup midway in the series, opened the game with a triple and the Beermen seized control early—and for good—at 18-8. The lead went up to 68-47 late in the third period and the Aces spent the rest of the contest trying to prune the advantage.
Also stepping up when it counted most were Chris Ross, who was named the Finals MVP; Arwind Santos, Marcio Lassiter, Alex Cabagnot and Gabby Espinas as the Beermen matched the 4-0 sweep they also dealt on the Aces in the Finals of the Governors’ Cup last year.
It was the second straight All-Filipino crown and the third in the last tournaments for the Beermen, who now have a leading PBA collection of 22 titles.
The feat validated the wisdom of the company’s decision to tap Leo Austria as coach after the former crack guard from Shell mentored a San Miguel Corp. team that won the 2013 Asean Basketball League (ABL) with a 3-0 sweep of the Indonesia Warriors.
More than giving the Beermen a three-conference romp, Austria remains in contention for a grand slam which, another SMC team, San Mig Coffee, pulled off in 2014 under Tim Cone. And Austria is more than determined to atone for the Beermen’s unexpected collapse in last year’s Commissioner’s Cup, where they finished ninth.
“We came into the Commissioner’s Cup [last year] not in our best shape, that’s why we struggled,” said Austria, noting that the celebration after the Philippine Cup win was too long “because it was the franchise’s first all-Filipino title in 14 years.”
“This time we’re giving the players time to rest, but not a vacation,” said Austria, who was expected to call his boys to a first practice today with the Commissioner’s Cup set to start Wednesday.
The brief rest is expected to give Fajardo more time to rest his injured left knee as he pursues his goal of a first-ever three straight Most Valuable Player award in the league. The last to win the MVP plum back-to-back is Danny Ildefonso, who also played for SMB in 2000-2001.