Lee, Hotshots wary of Beermen’s retaliation

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net

Days before the 2018 PBA Philippine Cup Finals, Paul Lee had questions about Magnolia’s ability to topple the mighty San Miguel.

But after the Hotshots’ amazing comeback from 20-points down and pull off the 105-103 Game 1 win on Friday, that doubts are slowly fading away.

“It’s a big confidence boost that we won against them,” said Lee, who poured four points, eight rebounds, five assists in the victory.

The Star guard, though, said that Magnolia shouldn’t feel complacent despite proving that it can win against the Beermen.

“You can’t feel complacent against San Miguel. Whatever you say, they’re three-peat champions in the all-Filipino Cup and they know how to bounce back,” said Lee, who is well aware of San Miguel’s capability to crawl from big deficits.

“They have proven that they can fight back from a 0-3 deficit. What more for just a 1-0 lead? So we just have to keep on pounding every game. If there’s a chance, why not?,” he said.

The fact still isn’t lost on Lee that though the Hotshots took Game 1, they are still the underdogs in this series and they need to be in a position to compete every game.

“We know that we’re the underdogs, so we just play through it,” he said. “We just need to give ourselves a chance to win. We tried to do this in this game, and in the end, we got the breaks. That’s huge for us moving forward.”

Game 2 of the Magnolia-San Miguel series continues on Sunday at Mall of Asia Arena.