PBA Scenes: San Mig Super Coffee Mixers Win All-Filipino Cup Championship

Best of the Night. Reread the title of this entry. 'Nuff said.

(c) Nuki Sabio/PBA

Worst of the Night. The second quarter walkout. I get the whole rationale behind Rain or Shine's bench clearing, locker room-hitting move early in the second quarter. As a sports fan, I really think we all needed that just to add a lot more spice in the Finals. After all, we might be seeing the last game of this conference. I actually salute coach Yeng Guiao for the wrath just because I really expected this game to be special in one way or another. It's Game 6, you know. But then again, this appears beside the worst of the night header, and that's because of the sour consequences Rain or Shine is about to face. Commish Salud had it all set tomorrow. I believe this is gonna take a lot of money from the Painters' bank accounts, but we don't know any exact amount yet. Anyway, the funny side is that the Painters walked out of the court twice empty handed. Well, not really, they have the runners-up trophy on the second march. 


Final Score. Mixers 93-87 Painters

Finals MVP. Mark Barroca is the biggest little man among everyone who played their guts out in the Finals. After punching a lot of thighs tonight and scoring 24 points from 16 shots, Barroca, the Tamarraws kick-out, and former Gilas guard, wins the Finals MVP hardware. Nobody's gonna object on this because it's the Coffee Prince who actually pushed a lot of Potassium Chloride directly on the Painters' veins. With that I mean the big, clutch shots at end game. He dished 5 dimes too. So tonight, we didn't only saw the handling of the championship trophy to Marc Pingris, we saw the coronation of the next Coffee King. All hail!

Sweet Sixteen. Obviously, I'm not referring to coach Tim Cone's age in this one, but the number of championships he's won in the PBA... right now. As charged as always, Tim Cone overtook the great Baby Dalupan in terms of the number of rings kept in their cupboards. A couple of good news for the triangle system fans, I'm pretty sure that's not it for Tim Cone, and right now, his face will surely be etched in our imaginary PBA Mount Rushmore.  



Defense. Alright, after all, defense truly won the San Mig Coffee Mixers their Philippine Cup chip. The Mixers stopped the Painters' rhythm and disrupted their ball movements through out. Mixers went on to end the night shooting 50% from the field while limiting Rain or Shine to 39%.



Three-Point Slump. Both teams shot 20% from beyond the arc. How bad is that? San Mig drained 4 of 20 shots, Rain or Shine just nailed 6 of their 30. That wouldn't win them tickets at Timezone as well. The shooters went to sleep early this game. 

Worst of the Night Runner-Up. I remember stating that any ejection will be worst of the night. It still is if not because of that epic walkout. But this is easy, and I am sure that coach Yeng Guiao wouldn't mind receiving this runner-up header after he was ejected for throwing a ferocious bounce pass to referee Mariano. So in this epic night, coach Yeng Guiao delivered his usual numbers. One warning call, 2 technicals, one ejection, zero hair, and zero All-Filipino Cup title. Pretty tough way going home to Pampanga. 

Quote. All of the "Thank you's" you heard live or on TV. Nothing beats a celebration full of gratefulness. 

Bits.

-Beau Belga and Paul Lee didn't wanna give in just yet. In the dying seconds, Belga and Lee scored most of their final points.

-Paul Lee, by the way, had 23 points. Pretty valiant.

-I really think the "on fires" tonight should go to Joe Devance and PJ Simon. Both tripled their Game 5 outputs. Duh. 

-Like any given night, Marc Pingris had stopped Beau Belga, Raymond Almazan, Jeff Chan, Chris Tiu, Paul Lee, coach Yeng, coach Yeng's assistants, Painters' ballboys, Big Dome's mop boys, the cameraman sitting baseline, and apparently, everyone wearing dark clothes. Sakuragi is a defensive bull.

-Jerwin Gaco got a lot of swag celebrating in the dugout. He played for a total of 15 minutes this series, and even striked Yeng Guiao out, so he's got all the rights.

-Same with Rafi Reavis. At one point, I really thought he considers himself a candidte for MVP. Why not?

-Well, we need to let Cawaling and Holstein celebrate too because they are champs too, technically.

-If you're wondering, yes, Cawaling and Holstein are actual PBA players. I understand you though.

-All in all, this finals have been special. I don't know how, but it was.

The Commissioners' Cup starts next Wednesday. So that means the Mixers are really well rested.