{"id":4361,"date":"2026-01-20T00:31:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T00:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/?p=4361"},"modified":"2026-01-20T00:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T00:31:31","slug":"ross-says-smb-one-of-the-best-teams-ever-anything-less-than-a-championship-a-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/20\/ross-says-smb-one-of-the-best-teams-ever-anything-less-than-a-championship-a-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross says SMB &#8216;one of the best teams ever&#8217;: Anything less than a championship a failure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Records are undisputable and without a doubt, San Miguel Beer is the winningest franchise in the Philippine Basketball Association.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It didn&#8217;t come as a surprise that Chris Ross, one of the holdovers of the fabled &#8220;Death Five&#8221; that propelled the Beermen in reestablishing a league dynasty, was honest in his opinion and vocal to say that they need to win at all cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Not only in the all-Filipino, but we feel like every conference, we should win a championship,&#8221; said Ross, showing how demanding the team was in trying to win the coveted crown of every tournament. &#8220;Anything  less of a championship is a failure, especially in the all-Filipino. I think we were the only team to win five straight.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Beermen won five consecutive all-Filipino titles from 2015 to 2019. As a franchise, San Miguel had the most number of Philippine Cups with 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a feat in itself. We take this personal. This team is getting better and I felt we&#8217;re one of the best all-Filipino teams that had ever played,&#8221; added Ross. &#8220;There&#8217;s been different generations in our team, but we kept on winning. We hope we can win again.&#8221;           <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ross and the Beermen are bracing for a rematch against TNT, but the veteran  guard and the rest of the troops are convinced the Tropang 5G are a much better team than last season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re healthier. Last season, they were fighting the injury bug, but they&#8217;re more healthy now, so we&#8217;ve got to be ready,&#8221; added Ross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His teammates could only agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They made some adjustments. They have returning players. It&#8217;s going to be more interesting,&#8221; said swingman Marcio Lassiter. &#8220;They have more shooters. I know they were playing really well. Hopefully, we can see a good series.&#8221;      <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nine-time PBA Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo believes the reentry of Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser and the more active role of Rey Nambatac and Jordan Heading in becoming key contributors of the Tropang 5G had certainly made the team more stacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Andyan na kasi ngayon si Nambatac. Andyan rin si Ganuelas-Rosser. Malalim yung Talk N Text. Paghahandaan namin ito,&#8221; added Fajardo.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although he likes the chances of his team in repeating as champions, San Miguel coach Leo Austria believes redemption will be the biggest weapon of the Tropang 5G.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They will be different coming into this series because we beat them last time,&#8221; said Austria. &#8220;Andun yung desire nila to overcome the loss they had last time around. Yung intensity and effort, lalabas yun sa kanila. Pero luckily, we had enough rest for the series.&#8221;     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Records are undisputable and without a doubt, San Miguel Beer is the winningest franchise in the Philippine Basketball Association. It didn&#8217;t come as a surprise that Chris Ross, one of the holdovers of the fabled &#8220;Death Five&#8221; that propelled the Beermen in reestablishing a league dynasty, was honest in his opinion and vocal to say&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,83],"class_list":["post-4361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hoops-basketball","tag-pba","tag-san-miguel-beermen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4363,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions\/4363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}