San Miguel Beer, Indonesia shoot for ABL crown today

The San Miguel Beermen will go for all the marbles today as they face off against the Indonesia Warriors for the championship in the Asean Basketball League in Game 3 today at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City.

The Beermen actually drew first blood, 86-83, two weeks ago but blew their chance at putting away the Warriors last weekend when the latter defeated them,81-61, in Game 2 in Indonesia.

The Warriors got their usual numbers from Evan Brock, who finished with 26 points and 16 rebounds, while Stanley Pringle added 13 points.

The deciding factor was the Warriors’ bench, which scored 24, a marked improvement from their seven-point contribution in Game 1.

The Beermen’s head coach Bobby Parks believed that something positive will come out from the lopsided loss.

“Sometimes when you lose by three, it’s not a wakeup call to the players, who might think ‘oh, that was close and we could have still won,’” said Parks in his statement to the press following Game 2. “But when you get drubbed like this, 20 points, now there’s a tendency for pride to come into play and you have to bounce back because they really beat us. We were out of the game totally.”

Duke Crews led the Beermen with 16 points and newly-minted league MVP Leo Avenido followed with 13 points.

Nick Fazekas had six early points but was a non-factor in the rest of the game and finished with 10 points. Correspondent Jonas Panerio