SMB squares series anew

ALASKA’S Calvin Abueva (left) drives to the hoop against San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo. AUGUST DELA CRUZ

For the first time in the PBA Philippine Cup title series, San Miguel Beer didn’t show an over-reliance on franchise player June Mar Fajardo.

The other stars in the loaded San Miguel lineup did their damage on the Aces and never allowed Alaska to climb out of a huge hole last night, with an 88-70 win tying this best-of-seven series at 2-all at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Alex Cabagnot finally awakened and tossed in 22 points as a total of six Beermen scored 10 or more in a balanced performance that reduced the vaunted Alaska defense to child’s play for the first time in four games.

Fajardo—a couple of hours after winning the MyPhone Best Player of the Conference award—took just five attempts from the field—his fewest in the series—and made four, and played a series low 27 minutes.

Cabagnot hit 16 of his total in the first half and the Beermen opened up leads of as large as 55-26 early in the third.

It was all San Miguel from there as the Alaska defense that has focused on Fajardo got befuddled with contributions coming all around for the Beermen, who assume psychological control of this series reduced to a best-of-three.

Game 5 is set tomorrow at 7 p.m. also at the Big Dome in Cubao.

“This is now a best-of-three (series), and Game 1 is very important,” said San Miguel coach Leo Austria.

Fajardo finished with just 11 points, a series low for him, but San Miguel got the likes of Arwind Santos, Chris Lutz, Ronald Tubid and Marcio Lassiter hitting big shots in different instances.

Calvin Abueva was the lone bright spot for the Aces, shooting 22 points that went with seven rebounds in just 27 minutes.

“We got beat,” said Alaska coach Alex Compton. Triple exclamation point on that one,” Compton said. “I don’t see any aspect of the game (tonight) where we beat them. They just clearly beat us.”

The scores:

SAN MIGUEL BEER 88—Cabagnot 22, Tubid 13, Lutz 11, Fajardo 11, Santos 11, Lassiter 10, Kramer 6, Ross 2, Semerad 2, Omolon 0, Pascual 0, Maierhofer 0, Fortuna 0, Chua 0.

ALASKA 70—Abueva 22, Manuel 9, Exciminiano 8, Baguio 6, Hontiveros 6, Jazul 5, Banchero 4, Thoss 4, Dela Rosa 4, Menk 2, Eman 0, Espinas 0, Dela Cruz 0, Casio 0.

Quarters: 33-16, 49-26, 73-49, 88-70