MANILA, Philippines—The past two seasons have seen San Miguel and Magnolia become the epicenter of the PBA and their saga doesn’t seem to be ending soon.
Magnolia demolished San Miguel, 118-82, in the two teams’ latest meeting in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup, adding another entry to what’s becoming an interesting rivalry.
The brutal loss may have sent the Hotshots into euphoria, but 2013 MVP Arwind Santos said the Beermen still hold the leverage in his team’s head-to-head with Magnolia.
“I’m the type of person who turns any negative thing into a positive,” said Santos in Filipino Wednesday at Smart Araneta Coliseum. “It’s a given that not everything you get in life will go in your favor.”
“It just so happens that we lost by 36 points, we’re just thinking of the positive thing. We’ll take a 50-point beating rather than lose in Game 7.”
Santos’ remark was a throwback to when the Beermen overcame a 3-2 finals series deficit in the previous conference against the Hotshots and claim their fifth straight Philippine Cup just 42 days prior to their 36-point loss.
The Hotshots were also the same team that San Miguel beat in 2018 to earn their fourth straight title in the All-Filipino conference.
Santos added that thinking about what they did in the finals of the previous conference would be their buffer and protect them from losing confidence.
“We’ll remain positive and at the same time this will help us protect our confidence because if this happened to another team, it will truly hurt,” said Santos whose Beermen dropped to a 2-4 card.
“Yes this is San Miguel but it doesn’t mean that we’re immune to losing in blowout fashion. We’ll just choose to lose by 50 points [in an elimination game] than lose a Game 7.”