The semifinal cast for the PBA Season 48 Commissioner's Cup is now set, with No. 1 seed Magnolia Hotshots facing No. 4 seed Phoenix Super LPG and No. 2 seed San Miguel Beermen squaring off against No. 3 seed Barangay Ginebra in best-of-five duels that start on Wednesday.
Let's take a look at each series and how the teams match up.
Will the Hotshots live up to top billing?
Behind their league-leading defense, Magnolia led the league for almost the entirety of the elimination round.
They zoomed to seven straight wins before settling in as the top seed with a 9-2 record. This came off the heels of their 11-0 sweep of the PBA On Tour a few months ago.
The Hotshots have looked phenomenal in this tournament, and the series (and championship) is theirs to lose.
The Hotshots haven't been in a championship series since the 2021 Philippine Cup, where they lost to TNT Tropang Giga. They haven't won a title since the 2018 Governors' Cup, and they haven't won a Commissioner's Cup crown since 2014, when they were still the San Mig Super Coffee Mixers and James Yap and Marc Pingris were their main guys.
It's been too long for this proud franchise, and their series against the Fuel Masters also gives them a chance for payback: Phoenix ousted them in the quarterfinals of the 2020 bubble.
Can Phoenix finally make a finals appearance?
Since joining the league in 2015, the Fuel Masters have made only two semifinal appearances -- in the 2019 and 2020 Philippine Cups.
They have never advanced to the finals of any conference, so a lot is riding on this series against the Hotshots.
This is also their maiden semifinal appearance in a Commissioner's Cup, and it couldn't have come against a more formidable foe.
Not only are the Hotshots the best team of the conference, the Fuel Masters have not beaten them since the quarterfinals of the 2020 bubble. Interestingly, Phoenix's top player then was Calvin Abueva, who's now with Magnolia.
A semifinal win over Magnolia would not only be huge for the Phoenix franchise, it would also elevate Jamike Jarin into rarefied air as one of only a handful of coaches to have reached a PBA finals in his rookie season (he was named interim coach late last season and appointed full-time coached last October).
