The San Miguel Beermen is scheduled for a head-to-head semi-finals round game against the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters at 7:00 P.M. on July 29, 2019 live from the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
Related:
- San Miguel (SMB) vs Rain or Shine (ROS) Game 4 Semi-Finals
- San Miguel (SMB) vs Rain or Shine (ROS) Game 3 Semi-Finals
- San Miguel (SMB) vs Rain or Shine (ROS) Game 1 Semi-Finals
The Beermen took Game 1 of their best-of-five series despite an off-night performance of Jun Mar Fajardo.
Now that can be good news but at the same time a piece of bad news for coach Caloy Garcia and his entire ROS squad.
Fajardo may right now figured out why he got shut down in Game 1 and can use that knowledge for his tonight’s adjustment.
Yet, if coach Garcia can polish that defense they’ve thrown to the Kraken, it may continue to work tonight. Still, they have one more player in SMB squad they need to limit the inside damage and that’s Christian Standhardinger.
The man who is also known as “C-Stan” delivered 20 points and eight rebounds. Standhardinger seems to have no defender around him as he finished the game with 8-of-10 from the field.
Standhardinger appreciates the focus of his teammates and their desire to make a comeback.
“My teammates just showed how experienced a team they are. They kept coming back from a big deficit and stuck together in a battle in the end,” said Standhardinger.
“We’ve been playing catch-up basketball in the conference. It’s good that we finally take the lead this time. But we have to keep going and we have to keep playing hard,” he added.
For Rain or Shine, on the other hand, reinforcement has arrived in Game 1 as Ed Daquioag and James Yap are both available for another championship run.
However, coach Garcia decided to limit their playing minutes as they find their rhythm back.
“I didn’t want to force them to long minutes kasi yung rhythm nila ibabalik pa muna nila,” said the Rain or Shine coach.
“At the same time, the players who did a good job in their absence still played good minutes (in Game 1).”
Another cog of Elasto Painters was also seen wearing their uniform last Saturday but was kept on their bench.
Maverick Ahanmisi is also healthy and ready for another basketball duty.