TERRAFIRMA guns for its third straight win as it goes up against TNT on Wednesday in the 2023-24 PBA Commissioner’s Cup at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum.
The Dyip are looking to sustain a strong start to the season in the 4 p.m. encounter with the Tropang Giga. Their 113-112 win over NLEX last Saturday gave the franchise its first win streak since the 2021 Philippine Cup where they won three in a row.
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Shortly after scoring a career-high 31 points in the win over NLEX, Javi Gomez de Liano said he believes Terrafirma is capable of reaching the playoffs with the make-up of the current team.
“We are a brand-new team na rin. New players. This time around, we really want to change the narrative of our team,” said Gomez de Liano.
TNT is definitely aware of the potential of Terrafirma. So much so that what used to be a routine kill for the Tropang Giga figures to be much tougher.
“It’s not going to be the same Terrafirma na nakita natin in previous conferences kasi they have a lot of good players, and they have found support for Juami [Tiongson] like [Stephen] Holt, [Kemark] Carino, Javi is playing on a different level, and Isaac Go maganda rin ang nilalaro,” said TNT team manager and coach Jojo Lastimosa.
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TNT has been trying to make do with a battered lineup without Roger Pogoy, Poy Erram, and holdout Mikey Williams, but was still good enough to post a second straight win, 101-98, at the expense of Converge last November 11.
In the second game, NorthPort goes up against NLEX at 8 p.m., with both teams trying to bounce back from previous defeats.
The Batang Pier were dealt a sound beating by Magnolia Chicken Timplados, 112-74, last Friday, while the Road Warriors lost a close match to Terrafirma.
NLEX will be missing the services of Kevin Alas, who tore his left ACL in their previous game against Terrafirma which could sideline him for a year.
Alas suffered an ACL injury for the third time in his career after he hurt his right knee on the past two occasions.
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