Ginebra over GlobalPort, 108-92
The Best: Ginebra isn’t the only PBA team with a potential twin-tower combo (Rafi Reavis-Yancy De Ocampo anyone?), but, this pairing between Greg Slaughter and Japeth Aguilar just has no equal. Coach Ato Agustin has two young and extremely talented bigs at his disposal, with both of them producing at really high levels. In this game, Slaughter raked in a double-double – 23 points, 13 rebounds, 1 steal, and 1 block, while Aguilar continued his mind-blowing progression, registering 21 markers, 8 boards, and 2 rejections. With both guys playing so well together, is there any stopping this Ginebra freight train?
The Worst: On the other end of the floor, the Batang Pier hardly found any answer to the Kings’ height and might. Starting frontliners Jondan Salvador and Kelly Nabong combined for 7 points and 6 rebounds. Likewise, Justin Chua and Leo Najorda couldn’t do much. The only guy who made a dent was super veteran Eric Menk. Major Pain erupted for his best game of the season so far – 17 points and 14 rebounds. He more than held his own, but against both Slaughter and Aguilar, even he fell by the wayside.
Top Seed: The Kings accomplished what they set out to do – nail the top seed as they advance to the quarterfinals. Their prospective opponents include the Energy Cola, Bolts, Batang Pier, and Aces, and it will be interesting to see which team gets to match-up with the Kings’ balanced roster. Needless to say, Ginebra is not only the favorite to advance to the semis, but the favorite to dethrone Talk N Text as the Philippine Cup champion.
San Mig Super Coffee over Talk N Text, 100-87
The Best: Well what do you know? The Mixers have won four straight, are now at .500 in the team standings, and just arranged a best-of-three quarterfinal match-up with their victims, the Tropang Texters. SMC had a crazy slow start to the season, going 3-7 before the new year, but they seem to have found their groove and are now a major threat heading into the knockout rounds. San Mig’s record might not show it, but this is a dark horse for the title.
The Worst: With Kelly Williams, Harvey Carey, and Ryan Reyes all in street clothes, it was clear that TNT was undermanned and overmatched. Even with four Gilas players in tow – Jimmy Alapag, Jayson Castro, Larry Fonacier, and Ranidel De Ocampo, – coach Norman Black couldn’t really find a way for the Texters to get over the hump and defeat the Mixers. TNT outrebounded the taller Mixers, 57-48, but they shot just 37% from the field. There were six Texters in double-digits, but they allowed SMC to shoot 44% from beyond the arc. TNT also turned the ball over 6 more times, which led to 13 points-off-turnovers for San Mig.
Balance: Five Mixers ended up with 10 points or more, and every single player coach Tim Cone fielded scored at least 4 markers. Now THAT is balance. PJ Simon continued to torch the net here, scoring 19 points on 6/10 FG shooting while also grabbing 3 rebounds and handing out 3 assists. Yes, James Yap is back, but it’s pretty clear that Simon has recently been the Mixers’ number one shooting guard. He has been sensational in the new year, averaging 18.5 points as SMC has gone 4-0. – Rappler.com
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