Alab begins title defense tonight

CEBU, Philippines — San Miguel Alab Pilipinas’s quest to defend its Asean Basketball League championship starts tonight when as it faces Hong Kong Eastern at the Hoops Dome in Lapu-Lapu City.

And they’ll start the playoffs with intriguing questions at that. Can they defend their title? Can they recover from a season-ending slump? And are they all healthy and in shape?

After ending the classification or elimination round with only a win and four losses in its last five games, seeing key players go down with injuries, and peaking early only to fade away towards the end of the elimination round, the second-seeded Alab seeks to erase all doubts as it starts with a clean slate in the best-of-three quarterfinals against a seventh seeded Hong Kong team that it has defeated thrice in four games in the regular season.

 But since those wins don’t count now, every game is a must-win situation for the defending champs. The good news is that Renaldo Balkman, Caelan Tiongson and Brandon Rosser are back after recovering from their injuries.

The key player missing is Lawrence Domingo who is out for the season. PJ Ramos is also expected to see action after missing Alab’s last game loss against Saigon. Balkman (25.9 points a game), Ramos (19.6 ppg) and Bobby Ray Parks Jr. (16 ppg) are expected to lead the Alab offense anew with Ethan Alvano orchestrating. Hong Kong Eastern relies heavily on its three world imports Marcus Elliot (22.9 ppg), O’Darien Bassett (22.7 ppg), and Samuel Deguara (16.4 ppg).

An interesting match-up will be the duel of the giants in 7’3” Ramos and 7’5” Deguara who have had physical battles and mind-games in their previous clashes. This will be the first time for Cebu to see the hulking seven-footers go against each other, something that hasn’t happened here since the CESAFI days of June Mar Fajardo and Greg Slaughter.

 Game 2 of the series will be played in Hong Kong on April 3, and if a Game 3 is needed, this will be played on April 7 at the Filoil Arena in San Juan. The winner here will then face the winner of the Singapore-Macau series.

Tickets for the playoff game are available at the Lapu-Lapu City Tourism Office (in front of Lapu-Lapu City Hall) and Global Link Travel and Tours, 2nd Floor, Capitol Commercial Complex (beside Grand Hotel), Escario St., Cebu City (above East West bank).

Ticket prices are P350.00 for upper box seats, P600.00 for lower box seats and P1,200 for VIP Seats (few slots).