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SAN MIGUEL Beer, the powerhouse whom everyone has an eye on, and Star, the hottest team in the Oppo PBA Commissioner’s Cup, slug it out at the resumption of elimination Sunday with both seeking to inch closer to the next round at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
With a 4-2 record, the Beermen and the 4-4 Hotshots lock horns in the 5:15 p.m. contest with the winner moving within the coattails of league-leading Meralco and nearer a spot in the quarterfinal round.
More importantly for San Miguel, it would enable the Beermen to stay in the hunt for a top two berth and a twice-to-beat privilege in the first round of the playoffs even as NLEX and Blackwater also try to fan their respective playoff chances in the 3 p.m. game.
The Beermen used the Holy Week break to have some players recover from injuries, foremost among them being June Mar Fajardo, the reigning two-time MVP who missed their last game because of a sore knee.
San Miguel has a definite edge in manpower and the yardstick among imports in Tyler Wilkerson, but is expected to miss former MVP Arwind Santos, who lost mom Araceli to lung cancer last week.
The Beermen will be coming off an impressive dismantling of Alaska last week and should be the prohibitive pick owing to very recent form.
Best run
Star, on the other hand, has a three-game winning streak going and is enjoying its best run ever since Jason Webb took over from Tim Cone at the start of the season.
James Yap is also showing rejuvenated performances, with the entire local roster responding to help import Ricardo Ratcliffe, who has been unbeaten ever since coming over to replace Denzel Bowles three games ago.
The Wilkerson-Ratcliffe showdown will be an interesting sidelight to the main game as only one man, Rain or Shine’s Mo Charlo, has been able to outperform the San Miguel import in a head-to-head duel.
Blackwater and NLEX are both out of the magic circle of eight teams that will advance if the playoffs were to start today, and the Elite and the Road Warriors would need to finish off the eliminations with a flurry for scot-free passages to the next round.
The Road Warriors are just slightly better than the Elite in the standings and would need to sweep their remaining four games to avoid any complications later in the round.