Wendell McKines TRISTAN TAMAYO/INQUIRER.net
San Miguel Beer’s defensive game plan coming into Saturday night’s Game 2 of their best-of-five semifinals series with Rain or Shine had a lot to do with limiting the Elasto Painters import Wendell McKines.
The Beermen tried but failed miserably after losing a game where they made 21 3-pointers and once led by as many as 20 points with only about a quarter and a half left.
It may be inexplicable at first as to how San Miguel would lose such game but the reason behind it was obvious.
“It’s simple, we were not able to contain or stop Wendell (McKines),” said Beermen head coach Leo Austria. “We had a plan to contain him but we got overwhelmed by Marcio’s outside shooting and we thought they won’t be able to recover from that.”
The Painters’ 113-110 comeback win had Wendell McKines’ fingerprints all over it. McKines scored a franchise-best 53 points that went with 17 rebounds, five assists, five blocks with two steals to boot. His last steal led to Jeff Chan’s game-winning triple with 7.6 seconds left that put Lassiter’s historical night to waste.
Lassiter knocked down 10 triples, including five in the fourth quarter, to finish with a career-high 31 points in a losing effort.
“I expect him (Lassiter) to explode anytime. And I have confidence in him and the players also have the confidence in him. He’s really one of the best players in the PBA today,” Austria said of his starting guard.
Austria also rued his team’s carelessness with the ball down the stretch and also the fact that June Mar Fajardo and his import Arizona Reid were saddled with foul trouble.
“June Mar and AZ got into foul trouble and we committed a lot of turnovers in the last two minutes.”
But everything leads back to McKines’ herculean effort.
“I think we have to give special treatment to Wendell,” Austria said, before noting that his team’s defense already did pay close attention to McKines, who still came away with the numbers as if no one had a body on him.
Austria found a simple answer why the Beermen lost. But he also found out that containing McKines was no easy task.
“Hopefully we can do better against him next game.”