PBA games back to Fridays for semis, finals

The Philippine Basketball Association is moving its Saturday games to Fridays in the semifinal and final rounds of the Gran Matador PBA Fiesta Conference to give the teams the usual one-day break in between games.

And in a bid to avoid further conflicts and controversies about officiating, PBA commissioner Noli Eala is calling coaches of the four remaining teams and league technical chief Perry Martinez and his top referees to a conference tomorrow.

The crossover best-of-three semifinal round begins Wednesday at the Araneta Coliseum with Talk n Text pitted against Barangay Ginebra and Coca-Cola versus Red Bull Barako.

"The basic reason in reverting the Saturday schedule to Friday is to give the teams enough time to make adjusments in the series. We want to avoid back-to-back games for the competing teams," said Eala.

On the meeting with the coaches, Eala said: "We’re doing this to ensure the semis will not only be competitive but also to clarify all issues, questions, concerns of the teams with regards to officiating."

He added: "We have ordered our technical team to have the referees ready to discuss and clarify calls which have always been misunderstood."

With the league back to its Wednesday-Friday-Sunday schedule, ABC 5 also made changes in its PBA games telecast. Sunday games will still be aired live from 4 p.m. onwards but only second games on Wednesdays and Fridays will be beamed live with the first games to be shown on a delayed basis starting at 10 p.m.

At the same time, Eala said they’re releasing a memorandum to the teams about specific penalties that will come with technical fouls, flagrant foul No. 1 and flagrant foul No. 2 and others.

"This will be implemented at the start of the semifinal round. Regardless of who is the player involved whether he’s an import or a star player, the rules will be implemented. Whether he would be suspended for an important game, so be it. It’s now in the book," said Eala.

"All these are geared towards an orderly and exciting series," he added.

Meanwhile, Alaska Milk used a scorching third-quarter run to wallop University of British Columbia, 90-70, in a non-bearing match at the close of the Fiesta Conference quarterfinals.

San Miguel Beer also made a graceful exit in the tourney by nipping the US Pro-Am Selection, 106-104, on a buzzer-beating shot by Nic Belasco.