Tyler Tarik Bey and the Hotshots are raring to open the season with a bang.
After a lengthy offseason that saw the league give way to Gilas Pilipinas’ FIBA World Cup campaign, the PBA is set to return on Sunday.
Magnolia Hotshots and TNT Tropang Giga figure in the Season 48 opener which will be preceded by the annual Leo Awards.
Gametime is set at 7 p.m. at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Reinforced by Tyler Bey, the Hotshots are looking to build on their spectacular 11-0 conquest in the PBA on Tour.
The championship-starved Magnolia will be put to the test right away against the reigning Governors’ Cup champions Tropang Giga, who are fielding in Quincy Miller temporarily in lieu of Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. Miller played for Converge FiberXers in the Commissioner’s Cup last season.
Hollis-Jefferson, who led TNT to the championship before his national team duties with Jordan, is recovering from a health issue. He sat out the Topang Giga’s 75-66 loss to Japan B.League team Chiba Jets in the EASL on Wednesday.
Unlike last season, though, TNT doesn’t have RR Pogoy and Mikey Williams this time around. Williams is reportedly renegotiating his contract with the team while Pogoy is out due to myocarditis.
“We have to be a better defensive team than last year because right now, we can't outscore teams without our two leading scorers, Mikey and Roger. That's (almost) 40 points a game so I don't know how we're going to compensate that,” said TNT interim coach Jojo Lastimosa in an article posted on the PBA website.
Nonetheless, expect these two teams to go all out in Sunday’s showcase.
(CF)