Manila Classico (Sept. 8) Strengths and Weaknesses

San Mig Coffee Mixers

Strengths:

1.Offense

surprised? We used to say that San Mig Coffee Mixers has always been a defense oriented team ever since. But what makes their offense their strength? It's because every time that San Mig Coffee scores more than a hundred points, they always win the game. Maybe the acquisition of Allein Maliksi works very well for them considering that Pj Simon has been struggling with his offense. And also, their star player James Yap has finally back after having a very bad start. 

2.The Import

it's pretty obvious that Marqus Blakely is better than Dior Lowhorn. Blakely has been doing everything for his team. He's averaging 27.4 points, 17 rebs per game (7 of those are offensive rebounds), 5.4 assists, 1.6 steals and 2.4 shot blocks per ball game. Unlike Lowhorn, he's just a pure scorer. He grabs 12 rebounds a game but Blakely can do more than that. Blakely's only problem is his free throw shooting. He has to do something about it. He's got 3 days to improve. So, let's see.

And of course, his defense will be a huge factor in this game. I'm so excited to see Blakely blocking those layups especially on fast breaks. I'm giving Blakely 70% chance of dominating Lowhorn on sunday. 

Weaknesses:

1. Complacency

In their 5 games in the elimination round, it's quite noticeable that this team has the tendency to relax especially when they are leading at the end of the 1st half. It seems like this team celebrates early even though the game is not yet over just because of the huge margin they have against their opponents. And that's the reason why when you're up against San Mig Coffee, you can still be able to make an easy run even if you're down by a 20 points. 

2.Rebounding

Because of the Brawl that happened yesterday, Marc Pingris will probably be suspended for their next game against Ginebra San Miguel. Pingris is averaging 9.33 rebounds a game and that will be a big problem for SMCM. Guys like Devance, Reavis, Ponferrada and De Ocampo should step up in order to dominate the rebounding department even without Marc Pingris on their side. 

Ginebra San Miguel

Strengths:

1. Outside Shooting

Because of the absence of Japeth Aguilar and Kerby Raymundo, the Baranggay Ginebra San Miguel will now rely on their outside shooting. They have guys like Caguioa, Tenorio, Baracael, Ababou, Helterbrand who can shoot from the rainbow area. Recently, I noticed that Ellis was kinda improving on his outside shots. This will be the biggest weapon of the BGSM against their long time rival San Mig Coffee. 

2. Fast Break 

Another weapon of BGSM, again, it's because of their injured front liners. If this team can run, most of the time this team gets the win. Especially when you have Tenorio and Caguioa on your team, expect a fast paced game and if you are to be assigned to guard these guys, you've got to have more stamina because most of the time you will run with them. You will chase them all the time. Sometimes, you'll have to sacrifice your offense in order to defend them like what Peter June Simon did to Mark Caguioa before. 

Weaknesses:

1. Defense- Ginebra is not a good defensive team. Four of their 5 games, they allowed their opponents to score more than 90 points and that's a sign of a weak defense of a team. It's not a surprise to see Ginebra having a hard time in defense especially now that Japeth Aguilar is injured. And that means, if they would not be able to get their offense going, they will lose the game. 

Now, the San Mig Coffee Mixers has to do some extra effort on their defense first in order to win the game. The offense will just be there. 

2. Caguioa's Selfishness- There's no doubt that Mark Caguioa is one of the best scorers in the PBA today. You can see on his game yesterday against Air21 that Caguioa can score. He was 8 out of 11 from the field on that game. But, before that he was just averaging 34% from the field. Meaning he was taking a lot of shots and most of them were missed. He has been struggling from the 3 point line with only 21% making 4 shots out of 19 attempts. Yes He's averaging 3 assists per game, but look at his attempts. He missed a lot of shots in their previous games. Good thing, he made most of his shots yesterday and if you're a fan of Caguioa you want him to do more. You want him to do better against your greatest rival of all time. The San Mig Coffee Mixers.

Now, who will take advantage of other team's weaknesses? Let's just watch the game on Sunday. Kampihan na!