Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
Even Leo Austria is baffled by what’s happening.
But with the talent that he has at San Miguel Beer, the six-time champion coach shouldn’t be as there really is no team in the Philippine Basketball Association that can touch his Beermen with a 10-foot pole once they are on their game.
“I wasn’t expecting this to happen because this is a championship game,” Austria said after a 132-94 annihilation of Barangay Ginebra that gave San Miguel a 2-1 lead in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup best-of-seven title series at Smart Araneta Coliseum on Wednesday.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why, for the way San Miguel played the last two games, it seemed that only an entire selection of the league could have taken the Beermen down.
Or not.
“No one expected three (straight) blowouts,” said point guard Chris Ross, who spearheaded a third quarter breakaway after busting his forehead from an accidental elbow from teammate Renaldo Balkman.
“Luckily for us [the last two games] are in our favor,” added Ross, who finished with 23 points built on a career-high seven triples.
According to chief statistician Fidel Mangonon III, the 38-point winning margin equaled the highest ever in the league, which was established by Alaska—then handled by Ginebra’s Tim Cone—over San Miguel in Game 6 of the 1998 All-Filipino.
San Miguel highlighted the dominance by leading by as much as 40 with 7:17 left in the game, 107-77.
SBP says sorry
Meanwhile, basketball patron Manny V. Pangilinan offered his apologies on Tuesday after the pullout of Gilas Pilipinas five from the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games in Indonesia slated Aug. 18 to Sept. 2.
“Apologies to all,” said the 72-year-old chair emeritus of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas.
Pangilinan and the SBP came up with the decision simply because the country did not have the players that could form the best squad possible.
This after the world governing Fiba suspended 10 Gilas players in the aftermath of an on-court brawl with Australia in a World Qualifying game on July 2 at Philippine Arena in Bulacan.