For a team the caliber of the San Miguel Beermen, playing perennial bottom-feeders presents a unique challenge of its own: losing that sense of urgency and killer instinct.
That seemed to be the case when San Miguel took on the Terrafirma Dyip on Wednesday at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium—for one quarter at least. In the opening frame, the Dyip matched the Beermen point for point and ended up just trailing by one, 28-27, after the first 12 minutes. But San Miguel woke up in the second, turned things around, and ultimately cruised to a 135-105 beating of Terrafirma.
Leo Austria’s Message Gets Through
That win should be a relief to Leo Austria, who admitted to reporters afterward how he emphasized the importance of the Terrafirma game, both for seeding purposes and to keep sharp heading into the PBA Governors’ Cup playoffs.
“I tried to remind them that this game is really important for us,” Austria said. “We want to bounce back from our loss last game, and this game is really important for us to maintain our position at the top two… We have a chance to get to No. 1. The good thing is that the players, after a bad start, they realized and nakita nila ‘yung importance ng game. ‘Yung sense of urgency biglang naalaala nila.”
Austria is right. San Miguel is currently at 8-3 and in solo second in Group A behind the NLEX Road Warriors, whom it will face next. A win assures the second seed, while a win by at least 15 points will push the Beermen to No. 1 via a superior quotient. A loss, meanwhile, could send San Miguel all the way to No. 3 depending on how the TNT Tropang 5G finish the conference.
San Miguel and Its Killer Instinct
Regardless, the Beermen are sure to make the quarterfinals, which is why Austria wants his wards to be playing with urgency every time they suit up—and against whichever team they face.
“That’s the way we want to play this game because ‘yung killer instinct na sinasabi ko sa kanila before, it gave us a lot of championships, ‘yung killer instinct na sinasabi natin, and I don’t want to lose that kind of attitude,” Austria stressed.
The mighty Beermen have, indeed, won several titles, including 11 with Austria at the helm. And they could be in the running for another one in this Governors’ Cup.
But only if San Miguel’s killer instinct is intact.
