The stage is set for the finals of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup this Sunday. It’s a match made in heaven as two flagship teams of the biggest conglomerates in the country — TNT Tropang 5G and San Miguel Beer — will collide, not just for the Jun Bernardino Trophy, but for basketball immortality.
TNT has been dominant this year. With a workhorse import in Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Tropang 5G captured the Governors’ Cup and the Commissioner’s Cup in dramatic fashion. In so doing, they overcame a lot of obstacles, including the huge challenge of flattening the league’s most popular team, Barangay Ginebra.
But the adversities they faced in the first two conferences were no match for what they survived in the Philippine Cup.
In fact, Tropang 5G opened their campaign without their leader, Jayson Castro, who suffered a season-ending knee injury. And if that wasn’t enough, the injury bug bit the team one by one from Kelly Williams to Rey Nambatac to RR Pogoy and Calvin Oftana.
Oftana even admitted that he was playing with a pair of swollen ankles just to keep TNT afloat in the crucial stretch of their semifinal series against Rain or Shine. Ouch!
But these Tropa have to keep going. Immortality beckons as a victory in the Philippine Cup will give them the right to sit at the table together with the country’s greatest franchises that have completed a rare grand slam. Simply put, it’s now or never for Tropang 5G. It’s either they complete the grand slam or they end up as yet another heartbreaking case of “what-if” in PBA history.
Enter San Miguel. Before the emergence of Tropang 5G, the Beermen were the best team in the league.
They won the grand slam more than 20 years ago and are still considered the gold standard of hoops success. Sure, San Miguel was outshone by its sister team, Barangay Ginebra, in recent conferences, but this doesn’t mean they should be counted out since they still have a solid core bannered by eight-time Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez, and veterans Marcio Lassiter and Chris Ross.
So, if there’s a team capable of stopping TNT’s grand slam run, it’s definitely San Miguel. After all, when they were still known as Petron in the Governors’ Cup in 2011, the Beermen shocked Tropang 5G to halt what could have been their first grand slam conquest.
Beermen coach Leo Austria may or may not admit it, but the thought of playing the spoiler’s role to TNT coach Chot Reyes’s quest for the missing jewel in his diamond-studded crown definitely crossed his mind. It’s a thought too bold, too ambitious to not entertain.
So yes, the Philippine Cup finals will be a battle between two heavyweights who are on different missions in a series that could alter the course of PBA history. It’s a kill-or-be-killed encounter for both TNT and San Miguel with the hungrier, more determined team expected to survive.
It’s a match made in heaven and Filipino sports fans are in for a treat.