Beermen upbeat, go for clincher today

Game today (Mahaka Square) 3 p.m. – Indonesia Warriors vs San Miguel Beer (4 p.m. in Manila)

JAKARTA – On the brink of adding another championship in its storied basketball franchise, San Miguel Beer went about the business of fine-tuning its plays with enthusiasm, looking feverishly forward to a Game Two on the road that could serve as their coronation day in the third Air Asia ASEAN Basketball League.

“Everyone’s in high spirits,” said SMB coach Bobby Parks, whose wards go for the title clincher at 3 p.m. (4 p.m. in Manila) today at the Mahaka Square here against an Indonesia Warriors squad hell-bent on extending the best-of-three series to a rubber match.

The Beermen pulled off half the job in last week’s series opener by overhauling an early 14-point deficit to wrest an 86-83 triumph and stand on the verge of a Cinderella conquest in the fledgling regional cage loop.

“We’ll try our best to close it out and bring home the crown,” said Parks, looking to extend the winning tradition of San Miguel from the PBA to the ABL.

One other element adding fire to the Beermen is their desire to win it for Phl, which has lost stranglehold of the ABL last year after the Phl Patriots lost to the Thailand Slammers.

But as always, Parks is not expecting a cakewalk against an opponent he described as a team that looked “good and fast” on video but is “better and faster” in an actual game.

And so the Beermen, he maintained, can’t afford to fall behind like they did in the series opener.

“We are on the road now, it would be very difficult to go down 14 points and come back especially with a game of this caliber. So we just want to come out to meet their (Warriors’) intensity from the beginning. The difference with them in this game is their backs are against the wall but we also want to play like our backs are against the wall, too,” he said.

“We have a good opportunity here to end it. We are going to come out and make most of it,” he added.

Americans Nick Fazekas and Duke Crews and locals Chris Banchero, Froilan Baguion, Leo Avenido and June Mar Fajardo are expected to rise to the occasion against the survival-mode Warriors led by Steven Thomas and Evan Brock, Stanley Pringle and Mario Wuysang.