San Miguel Beer remains unbeaten in the first seven games of the ongoing Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup.
Already assured of a quarterfinals slot and drawing closer to a twice-to-beat advantage in the playoffs, the defending champions are an unstoppable force in their campaign to complete a grand slam.
The Beermen’s dominant performance in each match starts with what happens inside its practice gym.
“We get quite physical even during practice,” CJ Perez bared after the Beermen’s latest conquest.
Stacked with stars up to the last man on the bench, Perez said that San Miguel players get super competitive in training sessions not only to make sure that they are in top form but to also show head coach Jorge Gallent that they are ready come game time.
“It’s true. The competition is high among us players in practice. We work extra hard especially when we know we have a lot of time before our next game,” Perez said.
“Of course, we need to make sure we don’t get too physical with each other, but the competition is high.”
Gallent has a good problem with the likes of double-double machine June Mar Fajardo, sweet-shooting Marcio Lassiter, Terrence Romeo, Chris Ross, Mo Tautuaa, Jeron Teng and even Jericho Cruz, who has missed a couple of games due to a tendon injury, at his disposal.
Managing their minutes to keep them happy, the tactician said, isn’t too complicated.
“You just have to talk to them. They’re just like kids. Sometimes the players play well and then they stay a little bit longer. It’s how they play and how they perform inside the court,” he said.
The Beermen are fresh from a 120-100 crushing of NorthPort last Sunday to formalize their entry in the quarterfinals.
Four more teams are standing in San Miguel’s way of sweeping the eliminations, starting with Magnolia on Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in a rematch of the Commissioner’s Cup finals series.
“As coach said, if we work together as one cohesive unit our opponents will have a hard time beating us. If we don’t then we’ll just make things hard for ourselves,” Perez said.
“We need to be consistent in everything we do in practice and most especially during games. If we play good defense, then we have to be consistent and never relax.”
In the last 15 PBA seasons, only four teams had at least started a conference 7-0 and of those four only San Miguel eventually won the crown back in the 2009 Fiesta Conference.
