Gin Kings, Beermen search for old form in Dubai
DUBAI—Barangay Ginebra and San Miguel Beer see no reason to panic over their slow starts in the PBA Philippine Cup, not even as they try to shake off the cobwebs against each other.
“I think both teams are starting to be competitive,” said Beermen coach Leo Austria ahead of Sunday’s showdown between the sibling rivals at Coca-Cola Arena here.
Tipoff is at 7 p.m. local time (11 p.m. in Manila) with the winner speeding up the process of getting back to their fearsome form after dropping two of the first three matches of the season-opening conference.
San Miguel may benefit from flying in to this city on a winning note after defeating Rain or Shine the previous Sunday in Rodriguez, Rizal and by a big margin.
“[I]f you take a look at the standings, we’re down there, but most of the time we’re catching up in the middle of the tournament and I expect some of the players to try their best to be competitive again,” said Austria.
Ginebra is coming off a defeat at the hands of rival Meralco nine days ago at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, where it squandered a 16-point lead and lost by 14.
But coach Tim Cone said he would rather have Ginebra go into this rough patch at this early phase than run out of steam deep into the conference.
“I think that we were a little bit behind in terms of our preparation to begin the conference, but that’s really by design,” said Cone. “So I think we just got off to a slow start, but, you know, we’re not ready to panic yet. Still got a lot of tournament left to go and we’re just still getting our feet underneath us and I think that we’re ready to play at full power right now.
“The only problem is that we got a powerful opponent in front of us, but we’re getting back to where we want to be,” he added.
It will be the seventh Dubai game for Ginebra since the PBA held its first official visit since 2007, going 4-2 in its previous appearances including a loss to NLEx in 2019.
Far Eastern Private School of the Al Ansari Education Group, which is hosting the event, is expected a packed crowd of at least 15,000 with only a handful of tickets left available. The two games in 2019, including the San Miguel-NLEx tussle, drew an average crowd of 9,500.
The two teams graced an outreach activity before students and faculty at Far Eastern before holding practices at separate venues.
