The Barangay Ginebra San Miguel are back to playing solid basketball, while the undermanned San Miguel Beermen have are falling over themselves just to stay afloat. It should be easy to see the outcome, but the PBA Bubble is pretty wild, so who knows?

Catch this game live today, November 8, at 4:45 pm, Manila time.

The Barangay Ginebra San Miguel (7-2)

After a two-game skid, the Gin Kings have now won three-straight games. Their second-ranked defense (90.1 PAPG) is still on display as they have held two of their last three opponents to under 82 points. This past Friday, they limited the conference’s most prolific team, Talk N’ Text Tropang Giga, to just 79.

It’s a good defensive momentum to have when you also parade a talent-laden personnel on offense. Stanley Pringle, as always, is leading the pack with 19.6 PPG and a smooth 47% shooting on threes. He’s 9-for-12 from deep in his last two, so look for that barrage to keep on coming.

Japeth Aguilar, Scottie Thompson, Prince Caperal, and Aljon Mariano will continue backing up Pringle in the scoring duties. Thompson remains to be the most interesting of the three as he is one of the league’s most consistent stat-stuffers. He’s tallying 12.9 points, 8.9 rebounds, 6.2 assists, and 1.4 steals per game.

Ginebra is scoring 96.1 PPG in the conference.

The San Miguel Beermen (5-4)

The Beermen enter the contest as losers of back-to-back games. They only give up 92.2 PPG in the conference but they were rough defensively in the last two defeats.

In Thursday’s 110-103 loss to the Phoenix Fuel Masters, opposing guard RJ Jazul scored a career-high 33. The following day, they got crushed by the NLEX Road Warriors, 120-94, with reserve big man Mike Miranda torching them for 22 points on a perfect 8-8 shooting.

San Miguel’s defense is pretty suspect right now, so the team better hope the offense can somehow make up for the struggle.

The Beermen offense is consisted of a well-experienced, battle-tested bunch – Mo Tautuaa (19.6 PPG), Marcio Lassiter (15.8 PPG), Alex Cabagnot (14.2 PPG), Arwind Santos (13.1) – and it will be greatly tested tomorrow.

SMB is scoring 93 PPG in the conference.

PREDICTIONS:

We should see another slugfest between the sister teams, who have gone for each other’s throats for years. I expect a more aggressive SMB squad playing with better urgency. They win, 102-96.