Beermen, Kings start best-of-5 semifinal

Game today (Smart Araneta Coliseum) 7 p.m. – San Miguel vs Ginebra

The royal rumble among topnotch ball clubs of SMC and MVP Group gets underway tonight with San Miguel Beer and Barangay Ginebra – pitted in a playoff series for the first time in five years – kicking off their best-of-five showdown at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Gametime is at 7 p.m. in a series tipped to go down-the-wire where the Beermen are out to continue their dominant ride with 6-foot-10 prized behemoth June Mar Fajardo while the Gin Kings hope to hit pay dirt with celebrated coach Tim Cone.

The other semis playoff between TNT KaTropa and Meralco commences tomorrow night also at the Big Dome.

If their double- overtime faceoff in the elims is any indication, the Beermen and the Kings could well be in for a long, hard grind to determine which SMC team would advance to the finale versus an MVP Group rival.

The Beermen went through 58 minutes before topping the Kings, 111105, in their elims duel last Aug. 14.

The two teams ended up with identical 8-3 win-loss marks in the elims and both took one game to dispose of the NLEX Road Warriors and the Alaska Milk Aces, respectively, in the quarterfinals.

Still, the consensus is that San Miguel is the intelligent choice over Ginebra owing to its more formidable local lineup led by Fajardo.

With their resurgence under Cone, the Kings are finally going up against Fajardo and his teammates in a playoff battle.

The Beermen are chasing a fourth finals stint in six conferences while the Kings are in their first Final Four in eight conferences.

“We know how good SMB is and how tough they’ll be. We just have to see if we can make them uncomfortable and drive them out of their comfort zones,” said Cone.

“They have a lot of weapons to account for, so we’ll have our hands full. Still, we have a couple of games to figure them out,” added Cone.