SIP goes for sweep, Cabalen wants to extend series

SIP-Flor A. Miranda will go for a sweep, while Cabalen-RP Construction/Transamerica will fight for survival as the two teams meet in Game 2 of the best-of-three finals for the Budweiser-Coca Cola UFO Inter-Organizational Basketball League tonight at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

While he credited his players for stepping up against a much taller Cabalen team in the series opener, SIP coach Rufino Aguon said they have no time to sit on their laurels and must exhibit the same level of intensity if they expect to win it all.

“The key was our defense. We were able to keep them off balance so their shot opportunities were not want they wanted.

“They forced most of their shots. Actually, all my main players stepped up on defense. It was not a one-man effort but a team. Our motivation is to show that basketball is not only for tall people,” he said.

“Game plan will be the same. Will make adjustments if they counteract with something new. We’re taking it a game at time. We can’t afford to take this team for granted, they’re that good,” he added.

Cabalen coach Elmer Pineda, for his part, said he hopes the breaks will finally go their way in Game 2.

He said because of a head injury he sustained in the third quarter, he wasn’t able to effectively coach the team and that led to their demise in the fourth and final canto.

At one point, medics wanted him to go to CHC, but Pineda refused and told them he wanted to finish the game.

Pineda said his players lacked leadership in the closing minutes of Game 1, which allowed SIP to take the opener. He said before his mishap, the game was neck and neck and he believes if faced with the same circumstances sans his injury, Cabalen would’ve won the ballgame because his players would have benefited from his guidance on and off the floor.

To their credit, Pineda admitted though that SIP’s trapping defense “killed them.” He said his players made the wrong decision to dribble instead of passing out of trouble.

Pineda, however, revealed that he has already made plays to counteract SIP’s suffocating trap, but that it’s still up to his players to apply that in the game.

He also said Cabalen would try to be more effective in delivering the ball to the inside as well as give shooters Ed Palma and Sonny Ranola more open looks at the basket.

Game 2 between SIP and Cabalen will be preceded by a 3-point shootout and a short program that would include dance numbers and raffle drawings for winners of the league’s fund drive for victims of the landslide in St. Bernard, Leyte in the Philippines. Like last week, entrance fee is $1 per person, which entitles buyers to one raffle ticket.