The San Miguel Beermen and the Converge FiberXers will start their best-of-five series in the quarterfinal round this Thursday. The FiberXers are surging but will their momentum help them pull off an upset against traditional powerhouse San Miguel? Or, will the Beermen take care of business in the series opener? 

Catch this game live on Wednesday,  September 26 at 7:3 pm, Manila time.

San Miguel Beermen (0-0)

Projected Starting Five:

• CJ Perez
• Jaymar Perez
• Jordan Adams/EJ Anosike 
• Marcio Lassiter
• June Mar Fajardo

San Miguel enters the quarterfinal round limping. The Beermen have lost their last two games during group play, as they suffered a 122-112 defeat to Rain or Shine and a 111-94 loss to the Blackwater Bossing in back-to-back fashion. However, that poor form of late shouldn’t diminish the image of San Miguel as a high-powered juggernaut. San Miguel, which went 6-4 in the elimination phase, did not have an import against Blackwater, as Jordan Adams sat with a lower-body issue. 

With Adams hurting, the Beermen brought in insurance in EJ Anosike, who will be on standby in case Adams couldn’t give it a go. Either way, San Miguel has an import-like local in Junemar Fajardo, who had 23 points and 12 rebounds in the Blackwater game. Fajardo can be expected to get help as well from the likes of Jaymar Perez and Terrence Romeo,m who had 21 and 15 points respectively, versus the Bossing. It’s also worth noting that San Miguel just activated Simon Enciso in place of Kyt Jimenez giving the Beermen added experience in time of the playoffs.

Converge FiberXers (0-0)

Projected Starting Five:

• Alec Stockton
• John De Los Santos
• Jalen Jones
• Kevin Racal
• Justin Arana

Converge looked as though it was going to miss the boat to the playoffs when the FiberXers started 2-4. But Converge found its groove and won four games in a row to finish group play with a 6-4 record. Two of those wins were against playoff teams Meralco Bolts (105-97) and Magnolia Chicken Timplados Hotshots (89-82). 

Converge’s streak says a lot about how dangerous the team is going into the playoffs. During their undefeated run, the FiberXers averaged 100.25 points and allowed just 94.2 points per outing. 

That big difference between those two numbers indicates competence on both ends of the floor for the FiberXers, who were led by import Jalen Jones in the Magnolia game. Jones had 27 points and grabbed 12 boards in that contest, while three other locals had at least 10 points.

Picks

Spread: Converge (+7.5)

Over/Under: Under (214.0)