Annual championship series of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League
The MPBL national finals or MPBL finals is the annual championship series of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL). The North and South Division champions compete in a best-of-five series to determine the league champion.
The MPBL finals is structured in a 2–2–1 format, where the first two games and, if necessary, the fifth and final game are hosted by the team with homecourt advantage, being the team with the better regular season record.
Five teams have won the MPBL finals with the Pampanga Giant Lanterns being the only team to win two titles, having won the most recent series in 2024. Since the introduction of divisions in the 2018–19 season, the North Division claimed four of the five titles.
History.
2018–2021: Amateur era and Davao Occidental–San Juan rivalry.
The first finals series was played in April 2018 between the Batangas City Athletics and Muntinlupa Cagers. Batangas City won the series, beating Muntinlupa in four games.
The 2019 and 2021 series mark the only back-to-back matchup between the same two teams to date: the Davao Occidental Tigers and San Juan Knights. The 2019 series is currently the only such to go the full five games with both teams alternating wins leading to a winner-take-all game 5. In the final minute of the game with the Davao Occidental Tigers leading by three, Jhonard Clarito made two crucial shots that lifted the San Juan Knights up by one point. San Juan would go on to win the championship.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 series ended up being postponed to 2021. For safety measures, the entire 2021 series took place at the MPBL's bubble at the Subic Bay Gymnasium. Davao Occidental and San Juan met once again, but this time with the Tigers getting their revenge, beating San Juan in four games. In a similar fashion to the previous series, Mark Yee helped clinch the title with a three-pointer in the final moments of game 4, removing a two-point San Juan lead.
2022–present: Central Luzon dominance.
As the league gained professional status, the next three final series would feature dominance from Central Luzon-based teams. In the 2022 series, the Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards came off a 21–0 regular season and beat the Zamboanga Family's Brand Sardines in four games while the following 2023 series saw the first-ever national finals sweep, with the Pampanga Giant Lanterns defeating the Bacoor City Strikers in three games. In the succeeding 2024 finals, Pampanga would make their way back to the finals, this time against the Quezon Huskers. The first two games of the series were played in international grounds for the first time in national finals history, having taken place at the Rashid Bin Hamdan Indoor Hall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Pampanga once against swept their opponents to become the first team in the league to win two championships and to do so in back-to-back seasons.
References.
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