San Miguel's 6th Man!

San Miguel Beer has taken a 3-2 lead over the Alaska Aces in the 2015 Philippine Cup Finals. The Beermen won the last 2 games of the series thanks to a the big contribution of the 6th Man.  the San Miguel momentum changing 6th Man is none other than .... JVee Casio!!!

JVee Casio's performance has made it easier for San Miguel to handle the pesky Alaska team. The former DLSU PG has missed not made a single point in the last 2 games all SMB victories. What is happening to JVee.

 In the first 3 games, he was averaging 12.7 points a game. He even made 7 three points shots in 17 attempt.   He was shooting .412 from long range which was even better than his .375 2-point FG shooting. Casio also made all his 5 Free throw attempts.  All of this has gone caput in the last two games. Casio was silent.  In Game 4, he was a non-factor.  In Game 5, his shooting skills left him and he just could not make a shot.

If San Miguel goes on to win this series, Coach Leo Austria's boys should give Jvee Casio a "balato" from their fat championship bonuses. With Casio's abnormally atrocious shooting it was like there were 6 Beermen playing against 4 feisty Aces.

Let's see if SMB still has a 6th Man in Game 6 !!!!

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Will Junemar Fajardo become PBA's Patrick Ewing?

Junemar Fajardo is blessed with height, heft, and skills to become one of the best Filipino basketball players of all time. He won an MVP title in his second year and he continues to dominate the league. He is probably on his way to another MVP this year and he is expected to win more. The only thing that is lacking for him now is a PBA title.  

Ever since he took the league by storm two years ago, his team never won a title.  They have been in the finals and they lost. The San Miguel Beermen is now trailing the Alaska Aces 1-2 in their best of seven PBA Philippine Cup Finals. Based on the way they are playing, the Beermen is being out hustled by the Aces who seem to want the title more.  Will "The Kraken" and the Beermen lose again?

If Junemar Fajardo loses then he slowly becoming a Philippine version of Patrick Ewing or Karl Malone. It is hard to imagine because a team have 3 chances every year to win a title in the PBA unlike the NBA which can crown 1 team only every year.  In his 6 conferences so far, Fajardo dominated stats but he never won a championship. Last year, it was the year of Tim Cone and the San Mig Coffee who had grand slam. Alex Mallari has now 4 titles while Junemar has none. They were both drafted by Petron 2 years ago. 

San Miguel Beer is like the LA Lakers or New York Knicks  of the PBA.  The expectations are always high.  It is a big pressure for any coach or player to don the San Miguel jersey. The win-now attitude partnered with disappointing endings have cost jobs of many good coaches and players.  The losing spell for San Miguel even cost them their Petron Blaze name. 

Can Junemar survive such environment? When do you think will he win his first PBA title? Will he wait as long as Jun Limpot? There is a big possibility that the wait will be long as long as San Miguel keep on tinkering its line up and coaching after bad conference.  Their method of trying to dominate the PBA by getting all the All-Star caliber players even if the PBA has "salary cap" has somewhat backfired because the team never developed the chemistry that teams like Alaska Aces and Rain or Shine Elasto Painters have. Those 2 teams have won more with less. Hopefully, San Miguel develop some sort of championship identity and shed the "larong mayaman" image. If not then someone will retire with 5 MVPs and ZERO titles. :)

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Tim Cone leaves Alaska

It's a sad day for the fans of the Alaska Aces in the PBA as Tim Cone his 22-year tenure in the Uytengsu franchise. I remember the days that I hate Alaska because they were so good. I remember the days that they battle my favorite team then the Ginebra San Miguel.

Great Pinoy players like Jojo Lastimosa, Johnny Abbarientos, Bong Hawkins, Poch Juinio, Jeffrey Cariaso, Ali Peek, Tony De la Cruz, and LA Tenorio have donned that the Alaska jersey under Coach Tim Cone. The 22 years resulted to 13 titles and countless finals appearances. They even won a grand slam in 1996.

Coach Tim has been a fixture in the PBA. He popularized the triangle offense in the Philippines and his emotional coaching style is a joy to watch. I wonder, where will he coach next. It would be exciting to see a coach of his caliber develop the next batch of Smart-Gilas. I think he can give Philippine National cager a basketball identity. It will also be surprising to see him in a rival PBA team but anything can happen.

To Coach Tim, good luck!