Philippine Cup: Still too close to call

San Miguel Beer clung to top spot when the PBA Philipine Cup resumed last week but the lofty position still does not guarantee the defending champion Beermen one of two premium slots in the quarterfinal playoffs among eight qualifiers from the 12-team field.

And with the rest of the field closely bunched together, every game in the final month of eliminations becomes critical.

Welcoming the New Year just as impressively as when it ended its schedule last year, SMB brought upstart Blackwater down to earth with a 118-93 rout to raise its leading record to 6-1. The win came after the Beermen had humbled the Meralco Bolts, 101-86, after leading by 31 points at halftime.

SMB coach Leo Austria feels two more wins would be enough to secure a top two position for the Beermen, but they have to go through a virtual field of land mines in their last four games.

After facing Ginebra San Miguel in a game going on at presstime, the Beermen will collide with Rain or Shine on Jan. 13, GlobalPort on Jan. 21 and TNT KaTropa on Jan. 28.

The Elasto Painters are in second place so far at 4-2 after NLEX produced one of the tournament’s biggest upsets so far by tripping TNT, 110-98, in Angeles City last Saturday.

The Road Warriors finally rewarded new coach Yeng Guiao with a second victory in seven games after their triumphant season start against the Alaska Aces as Carlo Lastimosa and Sean Anthony exploited the listless forms of the KaTropa, who lost Ranidel de Ocampo to an ankle sprain in the second half.

TNT fell to 4-3 like GlobalPort, which bounced back with a 97-89 conquest of Meralco barely a week after blowing a 26-point lead in the last quarter to absorb a 101-99 decision from Phoenix.

The Fuel Masters also own a 4-3 record followed by Blackwater at 4-4. Ginebra, last year’s runner-up Alaska, and Star are tied at 3-3 with Meralco and NLEX still in contention at 2-5 and Mahindra dead last at 1-5.

If finishing in the top two of the eliminations, which will mean a twice-to-beat bonus in the playoffs, is out of range, the next best target for the field is to land third place or up to sixth where teams will go through a best-of-three series to advance.

Landing seventh or eighth may be something to crow about the last two survivors will now face the enormous task of hurdling either of the top two qualifiers in the quarterfinals two times to keep their semifinal hopes alive.

The quarterfinal pairings are 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5. The semifinals pitting the winners of the 1-8 and 3-6 matchups and the victors of the 2-7 and 4-5 duels will be a best-of-five with the championship playoffs a best-of-seven affair.

Ties for the No. 8 qualifier after the eliminations will be decided by the PBA quotient system with a one-game playoff settling a two-way deadlock.