MACAU– San Miguel Beer vowed to do better despite having to make do with a depleted lineup in its East Asia League Terrific 12 debut.
SMB coach Leo Austria bared that aside from June Mar Fajardo (sprained ankle), also doubtful for the Beermen’s opening-day game against Shenzhen Aviators is veteran guard Alex Cabagnot, who is down with the flu.
Marcio Lassiter has yet to fully recover from the MCL injury he suffered in the last PBA Commissioner’s Cup, while big man Kelly Nabong won’t be arriving for the tournament until Thursday as he is coming straight from the U.S. after attending to some personal matters.
SMB will be short in manpower, but that doesn’t mean the winningest franchise in the 44-year history of the PBA will simply go through the motions.
“This is a very prestigious tournament. We’re here not just to participate, but we’re here to compete,” said Austria. “We’ll try our best to win.”
Veteran guard Chris Ross also just came back from a U.S. vacation and only joined the grand slam-seeking Beermen in practice last week.
Nonetheless, he sees the team giving Asia’s best club teams a run for their money despite a handicapped roster.
“We’re a few men down but the guys that we got, we should have enough to go out there and compete and ty to win some games,” he said. “We’ll try to put on a good show.”
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