Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Taking a day off from their heated 2017 PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals on Monday, San Miguel and TNT buckled down to work on Tuesday as both teams prepared for Game 4.
For Beermen coach Leo Austria, he knows his team should guard against complacency with their 2-1 series lead and must keep on pounding to further put the pressure on the KaTropa.
“It’s far from over. We don’t want to celebrate because this win is nothing yet. We need to prepare for our fourth game so we can have a commanding lead,” Austria said.
Austria acknowledges that winning the last two games of a best-of-seven series are the hardest games to win knowing that San Miguel is up against a TNT side playing with a sense of urgency.
“It’s really hard to get win number three. You can see that teams are now showing their emotions and the players’ intensities are already coming out that things are starting to get heated,” he said.
But Austria reminded his players to focus on the task at hand as the Beermen seek to get to the hill and snag a commanding 3-1 series edge.
“I told the players that we have to be focused and we don’t want to engage in any untoward incident against them. We know our goal and we should do our part to get it,” he said.
On the other hand, TNT coach Nash Racela downplayed the situation as he continues to exude optimism going into Wednesday’s game.
“We’ve identified our problem, which is definitely our turnovers, so that’s something we’re trying to address,” he said. “We told the team to make sure we do our homework, watch the game, and study. I told everybody to pitch in if they have suggestions, be ready to throw it, and prepare for Wednesday.”