San Miguel Beer head coach Jorge Gallent stressed that sweeping Barangay Ginebra was never a motivation for the Beermen and that their sole focus was to make it back to the Commissioner’s Cup Finals for the first time since 2019.

The veteran mentor, who will be marching into his first finals appearance as head coach, said the Beermen didn’t really put too much attention on how the series would end as long as they are the one winning.

“Our mentality was to move forward whether by 3, by 4, or by 5, so the sweep thing which happened to us last year we never thought about that. We just wanted to win the series and concentrate on the series,” said Gallent after SMB’s 94-91 win in Game 3.

Gallent even stressed that sweeping the Gin Kings never crossed their minds even if doing so would allow them to get some sort of sweet revenge after the Beermen lost to their semis opponents via a 0-3 sweep last conference.

Flaunting their depth spearheaded by the twin towers June Mar Fajardo and Bennie Boatwright, the Beermen still only needed three games to dispatch the defending champions although Gallent pointed out how close the three games went.

SMB won the three games with an average of five points.

“As I said kanina 'no, these three games were just all close. It was anybody's ball game, but you know, it's very nice to come out in the end,” said Gallent.

“‘Yung victory, 'yung tatlong game na 'to, it was all by twos, threes, and we're just (getting) the winning basket, so you know, with what I said, we're just composed to win and composed in the end which is good,” he added.

Even with the dominant 3-0 sweep, the veteran mentor said SMB had to rely on unity to weather repeated comeback attempts during the three-game stretch.

“It’s just our unity. We play as a unit and we try to win and lose as a unit. We just have to stay together if we want to achieve what we want to achieve,” he added.

SMB now awaits its finals opponent which could either be Phoenix or Magnolia. The Hotshots led the series, 2-1, although momentum was on the side of the Fuel Masters who pulled off a stunning 103-85 win in Game 3 to live for another day.