FROM here on, the long and winding road to the Promised Land only got doubly hard, akin to going through adversities that will surely test the grit and resolve of the four blessed teams that made it this far.
The expected dogfight of a series against mighty San Miguel Beer is not lost on Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
“That’s the runway we’ve been given, and that’s the runway we’ve got to go through,” Cone said. “We always say if you’re going to win an All-Filipino title, you have to go through San Miguel at some point.
“Whether it be in the quarterfinals or the semis or the finals, you have to go through them to have a chance to win a championship,” he added.
The Kings and the Beermen kick off the best-of-7 semifinals battle tonight in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
Game time is set for 7:30 after equally determined combatants TNT, seeking to complete a precious treble, and Rain or Shine tangle in the other match at 5 o’clock as the Final Four of the season-ending tilt gets going.
The charges of SMB tactician Leo Austria topped the 11-game eliminations with an 8-3 mark and capitalized on their twice-to-beat advantage in the quarterfinals, needing only one tiff to dethrone erstwhile defending champion Meralco 108-97 last week and return to the semis after bombing out of the playoffs in the last Commissioner’s Cup.
“Now, we’re in the semifinals. I think it’s a good achievement,” Austria, who will bank on the likes of reigning eight-time MVP June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez, Don Trollano, Marcio Lassiter, Juami Tiongson, and Rodney Brondial, said. “But we’re preparing for this conference to get all the way through the finals and eventually win the championship.”
Like its sister team, Ginebra promptly shut down Converge’s lifeline with an 88-80 victory in the quarterfinals last week and reached the penultimate round before the Big Dance for the second straight conference this season.
Former MVP Scottie Thompson, Rookie of the Year pacesetter RJ Abarrientos, Stephen Holt, Japeth Aguilar, Jamie Malonzo, and Troy Rosario are ready to step up for the Kings.
Unlike SMB and Ginebra, the Tropang 5G and the Elasto Painters clinched their semis slots the hard way, negating the Magnolia Hotshots’ and the NLEX Road Warriors’ win-once incentive, respectively, in the Last Eight.
Cone’s thoughts should also prove true not only in their race-to-4 clash but also in the other bracket.
“It’s just going to be a hard series for us. No doubt about it. But that’s why we play the game,” he said. “If it’s easy, we’re probably not going to be excited playing the game all the time.
“The hardest makes the game more exciting, we’re gonna use that, and see what we can do.”
