San Miguel and Barangay Ginebra, two of the perennial contenders in the PBA Season 49 Philippine Cup, are set to lock horns and test each other's mettle on Friday, April 25, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

After suffering their second straight Finals loss this season in the Commissioner’s Cup, the Kings seemed to have finally moved on, evident in their rousing 101-80 victory over the Terrafirma Dyip in their debut.

"Our guys are really good at moving forward and moving on. We don't look back. We are motivated because it's an all-Filipino and we want to get off and get our feet wet and try to get a win under our belts," said Cone.

And there’s no better way to get the Kings back in competitive form than testing their wares against the San Miguel Beermen in the affair scheduled at 7:30 p.m. and will come after the curtain-raiser match between NorthPort and Blackwater.

For one, with June Mar Fajardo, who has been the most dominant player in the league during all-Filipino conferences, the Beermen remained a barometer for teams even though they only finished runners-up last season.

“June Mar is always the target. You've got to figure out how you're going to handle him, how much you're going to allow him to dominate the game, and then you've got to pick your poison with their shooters,” Cone said of the Beermen.

“A lot goes into it. It's tough when you only have one day to prepare,” he added.

On top of that, Ginebra is surely also facing an SMB team motivated to get back on track after dropping a tough 98-95 overtime loss against Magnolia.

CJ Perez, Juami Tiongson, Don Trollano and Marcio Lassiter are certainly eager to bounce back from that defeat although Ginebra also has enough momentum heading into the contest especially with its stars like Japeth Aguilar and Scottie Thompson coming off impressive games.

Aguilar came two-point shy of his career-best scoring with 30 points while Thompson flirted with a triple-double of 11 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists. He also added another career milestone when he reached 500 steals during the game against Terrafirma.