Every game counts now in Commissioner’s Cup
The one-round robin elimination round of the PBA Commissioner's Cup is heading into the homestretch, with most teams having only two games left to play, and the standings are so tight that at this point no team has been officially eliminated yet.
Under the tournament format, the top two teams advance outright to the semifinals, while the third to sixth teams battle it out in the quarterfinals. The bottom four teams take an early summer vacation. With less than two games separating the teams in the middle of the pack from those at the bottom, every game counts now.
Defending champion Talk 'N Text and B-Meg have half a foot in the door to the semifinals with identical 5-2 records, but they both need to win at least one of their last two games to secure at least a tie for one of the automatic semis berths.
Lurking behind them are the Powerade Tigers and Barangay Ginebra Kings, who both won last Sunday to move up to 4-3 and kept alive their chances of making the semifinals outright.
The Tigers have searched for consistency all conference long, sometimes winning big and sometimes losing big. Except for their opening win against Rain or Shine, where they rallied from 18 points down to grab a 122-120 victory, all of the Tigers' games have been decided by at least nine points. Four days after losing by 14 to TNT, Powerade drubbed Air21 by 29. The Tigers take on the Alaska Aces on Friday then wind up their schedule against B-Meg on Sunday. They probably need at least one more win to secure a quarterfinal berth, although sweeping the last two games will give them a crack at the semis.
The Kings are also having a bumpy ride, but they got a much-needed W last Sunday when they outlasted TNT in overtime. A loss there would have pushed them down to 3-4 and brought into question again the wisdom of replacing Chris Alexander with Jackson Vroman. The ride will tend to smoothen out, though, in the Kings' last two assignments. Ginebra faces Barako Bull on Sunday and Air21 on March 28, and they're slight favorites in both matches, so long as Vroman isn't sent to the line in the dying seconds with the game in the balance.
After that, it gets even more complicated. Alaska is in solo fifth with a 4-4 record, and the Aces need to beat Powerade on Friday to steer clear of the teams that are bringing up the rear. At 3-4, you have Air21, Barako Bull and Petron Blaze, with the Blaze Boosters and the Energy clashing tomorrow in a virtual knockout match.
Petron has had the most up-and-down campaign of any team. Lost two straight, won three straight, then lost two straight again. The inconsistency was a little too much that the team decided to roll the dice and ship out Nick Fazekas, who had only been averaging 31 points and 20 rebounds, and replace him with Will McDonald. "I guess 31 and 20 isn't enough for these guys," Fazekas said on Twitter after being told of his fate. McDonald, who is fresh from a stint in Spain, will have to make an immediate impact and lead Petron to a win or two, otherwise his stay here could be very short.
The Energy have won two of their last three games and seem to be getting into a little groove just in time. After Petron, they face Ginebra, and they must win at least one more game to get at least a playoff for a quarterfinal berth.
Air21, meanwhile, was the toast of the league just last week after the Express won two in a row for the first time this season. But after that brief run, the Express went back to the Philippine Cup version of themselves, losing by 30 to Rain or Shine and 29 to Powerade. Not a good time to reacquire losing habits, especially with unpredictable Meralco and Ginebra up next.
Bringing up the rear are the Bolts (3-5) and the Elastopainters (2-5). Meralco's two-game run was snapped by Barako Bull last Saturday, a game the Bolts needed to win badly to move further away from the bubble. The Sol Mercado-Macmac Cardona dynamic appeared to have finally clicked before that game, but against the Energy Cardona shot only 4-of-12 and committed five turnovers. This puts the Bolts in a must-win situation against the Express.
Just when everybody was counting them out, the Elastopainters came back and walloped the Express by 30 points to keep their slim hopes of advancing alive. But they have to continue playing that way in their last two games, which are against the pacesetting Llamados and Tropang Texters.
It's situations like these when you appreciate Commissioner Chito Salud's decision to revert to a three-conference format for the PBA and do away with that failed experiment of two long conferences that just had too many no-bearing games, and the elimination rounds seemed to last forever. Now, with such a short elims round, not only does every win count but every point as well (due to the quotient system), and you see teams trying to score a basket till the very last second even if the outcome is already decided.
There's now a greater sense of urgency in every game, and kudos to the league for realizing this.
E-mail: sid_ventura@yahoo.com. Twitter: Sid_Ventura
