Beermen must play solid to nail ABL crown – Parks

Game today (Ynares Sports Arena) 4 p.m. – San Miguel Beer vs Indonesia Warriors

For the past six days, San Miguel Beer coach Bobby Parks and his coaching staff and players have been scrutinizing what went wrong in Game 2 and what needed to be done in today’s sudden death to complete their run to the title in the third AirAsia ASEAN Basketball League.

They all agreed that they were a disorganized crew in their 61-81 blowout loss to the Indonesia Warriors in the second game in Jakarta last week and will necessarily need to put their act together in their much-awaited 4 p.m. showdown with the Warriors at the Ynares Sports Arena.

“We will win as a team. We have to stay together. We looked at our mistakes and made the necessary preparations for Game Three,” said Parks, who’s seeking to steer SMB to yet another crown in its storied basketball history.

In the Game 2 blowout, the Beermen seemed to take matters into their own hands and played outside their team system, issuing a measly 10 assists, an output that was way below their 26-feed effort in their 86-83 triumph in Game One.

“It’s understandable that everybody wanted to win so badly but we relied on our individual games rather than a team game,” said Parks.

Warriors mentor Todd Purves, who was recently named Coach of the Year, expects an all-out battle for the crown, his crew needing to top their previous performance to have a good shot against the home team.

“I expect the game to go down to the wire. Well, we are going to have to play our best basketball of the year to get a win,” said Purves.

Indonesia is expected to lean on Defensive Player of the Year Steven Thomas and top scorer Evan Brock to impose their will in the shaded lane like they did the last time, when the Warriors dominated SMB off the boards, 37-21.