Magnolia Ang Pambansang Manok is just coming off a long, drawn-out battle and is hard-pressed getting its legs back.
Shaking off fatigue is a must for the Hotshots since they expect another grind-it-out affair against the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters Friday in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Don Honorio Ventura State U Gym in Bacolor, Pampanga.
Magnolia is gunning for a seventh win in nine games which would at least tie it for a quarterfinals spot and move it closer to finishing the eliminations among the top two which would be rewarded with a win-once advantage over a lower-ranked team in the next round.
For its part, Rain or Shine wants to snap out of a two-game skid and stoke its own chances of making it past the elims.
"We understand the importance of this game in regards to our intention of bouncing back from consecutive losses and also making sure we allow ourselves to take another step closer to playoff contention," said RoS coach Chris Gavina on the eve of the match.
"We know it will be a dogfight against Magnolia because we are two defensive-minded teams which extremely take pride in being considered very good defensive teams," added Gavina.
Indeed, the E-Painters allow only a tournament-low 75.9 ppg, which is around nine points less than what the Hotshots give up.
But Magnolia ranks third overall in offense, scoring 91.8 points an outing to RoS' 74,1 ppg, which is a tournament worst.
For such firepower to come to the fore anew, coach Chito Victolero said his Hotshots must shake off the ill-effects of a112-105 double overtime win over NLEX last Friday, some four hours before the E-Painters bowed to Barangay Ginebra 77-83.
"It's a battle between defensive teams," said Victolero of their next opponent following the Road Warriors game.
"We'll just try and rest tonight and tomorrow light practices lang para we'll have fresh legs on Friday."
Gavina can't stress enough his projection of how tough the meeting should be and what his charges' mindset is.
"It will come down to a battle of wills and who will blink first tomorrow, and we're looking forward to that challenge," stated Gavina.