Leo Austria. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—San Miguel Beer, fresh from wining its fifth straight Philippine Cup title, walked into Smart Araneta Coliseum Wednesday armed with the confidence befitting of the champion it is.
The Beermen, however, left The Big Dome badly beaten by a depleted NorthPort side missing its best player.
SMB head coach Leo Austria expressed his displeasure in his team’s complete lack of aggressiveness against the Batang Pier especially since they were coming off an historic fifth straight title in the All-Filipino conference.
“We’re so frustrated of what happened tonight because we never learn from this kind of situation, every time we win a championship we’re struggling at the start of the next conference,” said Austria, whose squad made its debut in the 2019 Commissioner’s Cup.
“I think this is the worst loss we had. It’s obvious we’re not in the game, we have low energy, and we’re not in shape.”
Austria’s Beermen have won seven of the possible 13 titles in the past five years and they went 2-4 in their corresponding conference openers after winning the championship in the previous conference.
But San Miguel was listless and nowhere near its championship form.
“We have to respect the game, but it seems it’s hard to recover or play to win if we don’t have the energy,” said Austria. “The effort is not there because there really was no energy.”
“I told them that we have to show our pride, we have to respect the game. Even if we win a championship or we play in the playoffs or eliminations, there’s a game to play so we should be ready. It seems we weren’t in the game, we’re not focused.”