Mad dash to finish

MANILA, Philippines — Six tickets to the PBA Philippine Cup quarterfinals up for grabs. Eight teams in hot pursuit.

With eyes set on the Final 8, aspirants make the final push this week to earn the rights to join early birds San Miguel Beer (9-0) and Barangay Ginebra (7-3) in post-elims play.

NLEX, TNT and Magnolia sit in a tie for third to five spots with identical 5-4 cards, each determined to claim the quarters-clinching sixth win in the coming days or even a seventh victory to potentially contend for Top 2 position and twice-to-beat incentive.

Entering the last four playdates of the elims, SMB has a lock on top seeding and win-once bonus while Ginebra has the inside track on the No. 2, which it can claim by beating NLEX in its final assignment on May 5.

Rain or Shine, resurgent Meralco and Terrafirma occupy sixth to eighth with similar 5-5 records ahead of ninth-running NorthPort, which finished the preliminaries with 5-6.

Blackwater (3-6) still has hope but it needs to sweep its remaining games versus SMB tomorrow and Phoenix (3-7) on May 4 while hoping for other results to be in its favor to possibly gain a rubber match for No. 8.

For those in the middle pack, there’s a side race to make the Top 6 to avoid a quarters clash with SMB and the eventual second seed. According to tournament rules, the Nos. 7 and 8 will carry a twice-to-win disadvantage against the No. 2 and SMB, respectively, whereas those ranked third to sixth will be featured in best-of-three pairings.

The Fuel Masters and the Converge FiberXers (1-9), meanwhile, are already out of the playoffs contention but are bent on closing out their campaigns with a bang.

Per records, this is the first time in five conferences that there are nine teams with at least five wins in the elims.