April 14 ------ The rise of perennial doormat teams and mid-tier squads contribute to the tighter competition in the 2024 PBA Philippine Cup – a development that coaches see as a good thing for the league. The all-Filipino conference saw vast improvement to Terrafirma, Blackwater, NorthPort and NLEX – teams that are usually lagging behind in the standings but are right now in the upper half of the pack and very much in contention for a playoff spot.
Magnolia mentor Chito Victolero, who needed a career-night from Ian Sangalang just to stave off the hard-fighting Batang Pier for a pulsating 104-97 win on Wednesday, April 10, pointed out how the league is seeing some sort of balance between teams. “All of the teams right now are improving the Terrafirma, the Blackwater, NLEX and NorthPort,” said Victolero. “You don't expect kung sino ‘yung mananalo. ‘Yung competition sobrang tight. Talagang ang ganda ng labanan kahit yung first game nakita nyo naman sobrang dikit,” he added citing the San Miguel’s narrow 113-110 win over Terrafirma in the first game.
Although on a league of its own with a perfect 5-0 record, the Beermen still had to overcome a giant scare from the Dyip to keep their spot atop the standings. The competition for the playoff spot seemed to be an open race right now with NLEX sitting just behind the league-leader with a 5-1 record. NorthPort is still running third despite the loss to Magnolia with 4-2 slate while vastly improved Terrafirma and Blackwater are at the fourth and fifth spots with 4-4 and 3-3 records, respectively.
Their rise put usual playoff contenders like Barangay Ginebra (3-3), TNT (3-3), Magnolia (2-2), Meralco (3-4) in unfamiliar territories at the bottom half of the standings. Except Converge, which hasn’t really done anything impressive so far in the season, even current cellar teams like Rain or Shine (3-4) and Phoenix (1-4) have both shown that they are also capable of competing against the league’s big dogs.
The Fuel Masters are semifinalists of the last conference while the Elasto Painters are in the middle of a three-game winning run. The league is still far from the even playing field that most fans want to see but the improvements of these teams are a step in the right direction towards the parity between team and tougher competition in the PBA. “Maganda yun for the PBA. Maganda for the fans. And I hope na iyon yung competition talaga maging sobrang ganda,” added Victolero.
Source: mb.com.ph