The Tropang Texters face sliding San Mig Coffee in the main game at 6:30 p.m. in a rematch of last year’s Commissioner’s Cup finals. This comes right after the meeting of Batang Pier and Meralco at 4:15 p.m.
After losing to the Bolts at the start of its campaign, Talk ‘N Text now has won its last two games while defending champion San Mig Coffee has yet to win a game after three starts.
This concerns Tropang Texters head coach Norman Black.“We are expecting a hungry San Mig Coffee team especially in light of their loss to Rain or Shine on Friday,” said Black, referring to the Mixers’ 93-65 defeat to the Elasto Painters.
“We just want to continue to improve on our defense, while keeping the game as uptempo as possible.”
Reigning Commissioner’s Cup Best Import Denzel Bowles returned to the San Mig Coffee lineup and scored just 12 points. He replaced Matt Rogers.
In the opener, GlobalPort hopes to bounce back from a 99-79 defeat at the hands of the Tropang Texters and nails its third win.
“Regroup, bounce back from a blowout loss,” said Batang Pier coach Junel Baculi. “We respect Meralco, they are a good team. We have to work on our defense. We allow too many points in our last four games.”
The Bolts enter the game on a three-game losing streak, including a heart-breaking 88-86 defeat at the hands of Petron Blaze.
“We’re trying. We’ve been competing hard but could not close out games on a high note. We just have to try harder. It is a long conference and a lot of things can happen,” said Meralco coach Ryan Gregorio.
“We see a lot of good things despite our early losses, most notable of which is the fact that we simply don’t give up. Down big against Petron and still had a legit crack at winning, then disaster struck, the call by the ref which broke our momentum.”
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