Rookie Tyler Tio has been rising to the occasion for Phoenix recently. —PBA IMAGES
You’ll have to scroll down the standings to find the team on the hunt for a second Grand Slam jewel.
And if you are defined by the company that you keep, San Miguel Beer should be less than flattered. The Beermen are in the bottom four of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup along with two teams that got ridiculously whacked by a guest team and a squad that is on a surprising spiral.
Maybe San Miguel coach Leo Austria can benefit from Topex Robinson’s new age wisdom.
“I just discussed with the team that the ‘hard’ [from] before now became easy because of how we embraced it when we were struggling,” the Phoenix coach told the Inquirer on Tuesday.
The Fuel Masters, who are dealing with manpower woes and franchise uncertainties, opened their conference with three straight losses but managed to make a 180-degree turn to become one of the hottest clubs in the mid-season showcase.
All because of Robinson’s unorthodox approach: Instead of finding ways to overcome adversity, Phoenix rushed out and embraced it.
Sounds like a philosophy that can benefit Austria.
The Beermen, reigning Philippine Cup champions and thus—by default—the only live triple crown chaser this season, are struggling with the absence of key weapon June Mar Fajardo and the cohesion problems brought about by cycling through three imports already.
“Our opponents keep on getting stronger and stronger because of quality imports. And in our case, we have a new import and we don’t have June Mar so it’s really tough for us in terms of adjustments,” Austria said.
So far his solution is pretty straightforward.
“I keep on telling everybody to have a sense of urgency. If you have a sense of urgency, the desire will be there,” he said of his talented crew, who are uncharacteristically at 2-3 (win-loss) in the conference.
San Miguel is half a game below Blackwater, one win better than Meralco and leads the bottom four teams, a group rounded out by winless Terrafirma. Blackwater and Terrafirma, incidentally, lost by an average of 50 points to guest squad Bay Area.
It might take more than just a sense of urgency to drag the Beermen from out of the cellar. San Miguel is looking for a second straight win when it battles NorthPort at 5:45 p.m. at Ynares Center in Antipolo City.
Perhaps the Beermen can take their cue from the Fuel Masters’ approach as they shoot for a fourth straight victory in their 3 p.m. duel versus Rain or Shine.
“[I]n order for us to have a chance against a solid team like Rain or Shine, we have to go harder,” Robinson said.
“It’s not a guarantee of winning but it’s giving ourselves a chance to learn and grow [as we’re] a young team,” Robinson added. “We are expecting everyone to be one percent better than [they were from] our last game.”
Phoenix needs to be. The team won’t be sneaking up on coach Yeng Guiao and the Elasto Painters in their encounter.
“We know that they play a lot of zone [defense]. We know that they’ve been shooting well, too, particularly Tyler Tio and RJ Jazul. So we have quite a problem this Wednesday,” Guiao said. “It will be tough facing a side oozing with confidence.”
“Like I said, the usual middle-of-the-pack teams are now playing well, so we need to be able to keep up,” he added.
Also at 3-3 are the Batang Pier, who are going into the contest against the Beermen with a new signee in Gilas cadet William Navarro, a versatile forward who could very well complement spitfire Robert Bolick and resident import Prince Ibeh.
The new addition will only heighten San Miguel’s absent star. But Austria is clinging to optimism that the Beermen will learn to adapt, as they did in a recent 124-116 victory over NLEX, where guard Marcio Lassiter declared it was time to stop using Fajardo’s absence as an excuse to drop out of title contention.
“If you noticed, we cannot run some of the plays that we usually run,” Austria said. “But given enough time, I think we’ll be better.”