The second portion of the 2019
PBA Season, represented in the Commissioner’s Cup, will soon enter into its
Playoffs stage. As it stands, seven of the eight starting berths for the
playoffs quarterfinals have been filled by the top performing PBA teams in the
elimination round. The franchises that have already qualified here are Talk
& Text, NorthPort, Blackwater, Ginebra, Magnolia, Rain or Shine, and San
Miguel. Phoenix, Columbian and NLEX have already been eliminated from
contention, leaving just two teams to fight for the eighth spot: the Alaska
Aces and Meralco Bolts. Their fates will be decided Friday night in the final
elimination game.
CNN Philippines reports that Meralco and Alaska will go head to
head this July 19 at the Mall of Asia Arena. They will play to get the final
quarterfinals position for the 2019 PBA Commissioner’s Cup playoffs. Granted,
the positioning of the slots will mean that whoever wins tonight will face top
seeded team the TNT KaTropa, which must be beaten twice. Both the Aces and
Bolts have a 4-win and 7-loss game record during the eliminations. And while Phoenix
Pulse Fuel Masters have the save stats their quotient was poor compared to the
two.
Coming into this game, Alaska is
in good morale, considering the one time they faced Meralco in the elimination
rounds prior to this important match, they won by four points at the Ynares Center,
Antipolo. On the other hand they did suffer five consecutive defeats after
after a 4-2 run. The Meralco Bolts on the other hand managed to beat the San
Miguel Beermen, which is currently the seventh seeded team in the playoffs. On
the other hand they too had their own 5-game losing streak before facing San
Miguel, with their other wins being spaced widely between the defeats.
Since the Commissioner’s Cup
allows for imports to play on teams, Meralco should have some advantage due to
their strong import players from past seasons. This year however, both the
Bolts and the Aces have new imports in their squads, somehow making them even
in that regard as there has been no prior player dynamics formed. Alaska has
Diamon Simpson while Meralco gets Delroy James as the lead imports for their
respective teams going into this knockout game, and the two are expected to be
pitted against each other too.
The final bracket of the 2019 PBA
Commissioner’s Cup Playoffs will be completed with the Alaska-Meralco game at
7PM tonight. While the winner will face Talk & Text, the other matchups in
the upcoming quarterfinals are: Ginebra-Magnolia (Best of 3), NorthPort-San
Miguel (Twice-to-beat), and BlackWater-Rain or Shine (Best of 3).
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