As losses pile up, Beermen dreaming small as they target last playoff spot
MANILA, Philippine—After its latest 134-132 overtime loss to Columbian, San Miguel in danger of missing the playoffs of the second conference altogether at 2-5.B
But that grim prospect doesn’t deter Arwind Santos, who believes they can still pull off a comeback and go on a strong run in the playoffs.
“We’re not happy with the 2-5 record, but we just need to get to the top eight and we’ll work from there,” said Santos in Filipino Sunday at Smart Araneta Coliseum. “We’ve already experienced dreaming of getting to the top, now we’re hoping we could get to the no.8 spot.”
“We’ll be the no.8 team, then we’ll beat the no.1 team, which has a twice-to-beat advantage, and that’s I think what would happen. We’ll start from there, we won’t dream of something big, let’s start of something small.”
At this point though, every game for the Beermen basically carries a must-win scenario and the cards are stacked against them.
Santos, who finished with 16 points and eight rebounds, was the one who sent the game to overtime when he drilled a clutch three-pointer that tied the game at 118 with 1.1 seconds left in regulation.
The 2013 MVP is confident they can beat the no.1 seed, which at this moment is the 7-1 TNT KaTropa, if the Beermen do finish as the no.8 team in the conference.
“Of course we can beat the no.1 team, we have the capabilities to do that,” said Santos. “But you guys know that it’s not an easy feat to do but I once said that our goal was to get the no.4 spot, then it became no.6, and to tell you honestly I don’t think we can finish at that spot.”
“So we’ll start slow, dream of that lower seed first, so we can rise slowly then we’ll be surprising ourselves because our wish was just to get to this lower spot in the standings.”
