Will history repeat itself?

Well, that seems to be the case as San Miguel Beer is now on the brink of spoiling TNT Tropang 5G’s grand slam dream with an emotional 105-91 victory in Game 4 of their Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup best-of-seven finals series late Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Jericho Cruz led the scoring, erupting for 15 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter while newly-minted June Mar Fajardo terrorized the paint with 15 points and 16 rebounds to put the Beermen one win away from securing their league-best 30th title.

But getting this far wasn’t easy for San Miguel.

In Game 1, San Miguel found itself buried in a deep 24-point hole. But instead of rolling over and die, the Beermen stormed back until finally regaining the lead, 98-97, off a Mo Tautuaa dunk with 56 seconds left.

Then, disaster struck.

Chris Ross forced a jump ball against Jordan Heading in the final 6.2 seconds left, giving game officials time to review Tautuaa’s slam. Eventually, the referees nullified the basket, giving TNT the lead that sealed its victory.

The belated call sparked a controversy with no less than San Miguel Corporation sports director Alfrancis Chua calling out league’s deputy commissioner Eric Castro and technical director Bong Pascual while Beermen governor Robert Non had to be restrained in a burst of emotion at endgame.

San Miguel coach Leo Austria said their Game 1 misfortune fired up his wards, fueling them to cold-bloodedly crush the injury-riddled Tropang 5G in their next three matches.

“The biggest factor was the first game. It fueled our grit. You can see the fire in the eyes of our players. They really wanted to win,” said Austria, who did a great job motivating the Beermen to come up with a killer mentality in Game 4.

But it wasn’t just their Game 1 heartbreak that the Beermen wanted to bury. They are also aiming to repeat history and spoil what could be a grand slam celebration by the flagship franchise of industrialist Manny Pangilinan.

The last time the Tropang 5G got very close to the coveted triple crown was in the Governors’ Cup of 2011.

TNT had a powerful roster of Ranidel de Ocampo, Jimmy Alapag, Kelly Williams and Harvey Carey with Maurice Baker as import while San Miguel, then known as Petron, had Arwind Santos, Alex Cabagnot, Denok Miranda and Danny Ildefonso with import Adrian Grundy.

They fought tooth and nail in the finals until Petron, which was down to only 10 players, waged a sizzling rally down the stretch to eke out an 85-73 win in Game 7 that denied TNT its chance to win its third straight title.

Instead of lifting the trophy and sitting at the same table with other immortal squads like Crispa, San Miguel, Alaska and Magnolia, the Tropang Giga were pushed into the footnote of PBA history together with franchises that “nearly” complete the elusive feat.

Among those who fell short of winning the grand slam were Toyota in 1975, Crispa in 1977, Great Taste in 1985, Tanduay in 1986, Sunkist in 1995, Alaska in 1998, San Miguel in 2017 and 2019.

The most memorable “what-if” campaign happened to the Comets of Dante Silverio as they have moved a heartbeat away from winning the grand slam only to be shut down by rival Crispa of Virgilio “Baby” Dalupan in Game 5 of the best-of-five All-Filipino title showdown.

Sunkist’s campaign was also unforgettable as it won the first two conferences before failing to advance to the Finals of the Third Conference in 1995 while Alaska’s bid was remarkable as it had a chance to seize its second grand slam in 1998 until team owner Steve Uytengsu decided to loan stars like Jojo Lastimosa, Johnny Abarrientos, Bong Hawkins and Kenneth Duremdes to the Tim Cone-mentored Centennial Team that will play in the Asian Games in Bangkok.

In the pre-finals press conference, Austria strongly denied that they were out to spoil TNT’s journey to immortality, emphasizing that their main order of battle is to simply win the title — nothing more, nothing less.

But now that the bad blood that quietly simmered underneath had already blown out in the open, it’s no longer clear whether Austria’s stand is still the same.