2018 MPBL season

The 2018 MPBL season, also known as the MPBL Rajah Cup or the MPBL Anta–Rajah Cup for sponsorship reasons, was the inaugural season of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League. The regular season began on January 25, 2018 and ended on March 17, 2018. The playoffs began on March 20, 2018 and ended on April 19, 2018. The inaugural season featured ten teams, all based in Luzon, making it the only season to not have divisions nor feature teams from Visayas or Mindanao.

The opening ceremony took place at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, followed by the inaugural game between the Parañaque Patriots and the Caloocan Supremos. This season featured 10 teams, the smallest the league has been since.

The Batangas City Athletics were crowned the 2018 MPBL champions, after defeating the Muntinlupa Cagers in the 2018 MPBL Rajah Cup finals, three games to one.

Teams
The inaugural season featured ten teams, all based in Luzon, with no division alignment.

Roster regulations
Since the MPBL was a semi-professional league at the time, its initial set of roster regulations are made to help promote local talents:
 * Teams are required to sign three homegrown players into the roster. These players must be native to the locality in which the team is based in.
 * A limit of five ex-professional (or ex-pro) players is placed on each team. Any player who has had experience in professional basketball is considered an ex-professional player.

Opening ceremony
On January 25, 2018, the league held the opening ceremonies at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. It featured the inaugural game which saw the Parañaque Patriots beating the Caloocan Supremos with a score of 70–60. Daniel San Juan de Guzman of the Parañaque Patriots made the league's first basket in that game.

Format
The ten teams played in a single round-robin format, playing one game against all other teams in the league. In each gameday, a series of games is played in a designated home arena, with the home team usually playing in the final game.

The top eight teams overall advanced to a three-round, single-elimination playoffs, playing in best-of-three series in the quarterfinals and semifinals, and a best-of-five series in the finals, with homecourt advantage alternating between the higher seeds of each series (excluding the finals).

Schedule

 * Bold indicates home game; Italics indicate away game

Results
Not all games are in home–away format. Each team plays every team once. Number of asterisks after each score denotes number of overtimes played.

Playoffs
Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its division, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. Teams with home court advantage, the higher seeded team, are shown in italics.

Quarterfinals
In the quarterfinals, the first- and second-seeded teams host games 1 and 3, while the third- and fourth-seeded teams host game 2.


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Semifinals
In the semifinals, the highest seeded team hosts games 1 and 3, while the second-highest seeded team hosts game 2.

Due to Batangas City advancing after game 2, Muntinlupa instead hosted game 3.


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Finals
In the MPBL finals, the higher-seeded team hosts games 1, 2, and 5, while the lower-seeded team hosts games 3 and 4.


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Records

 * On February 20, 2018, The Muntinlupa Cagers became the first team in league history to score at least 100 points in a single game, doing so against the Quezon City Capitals. It was also the only such occurrence throughout the entire season.

Media
This season marked the first of three years of ABS-CBN's broadcast rights with the league. Games were aired on the S+A channel in both SD and HD quality.