Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
A stacked trophy case won’t protect someone from late-game jitters, even if that cabinet included four PBA MVP trophies and seven Best Player of the Conference awards both of which are most in league history.
With San Miguel up, 83-82, against Barangay Ginebra, June Mar Fajardo stepped up to the charity stripe with 56.6 seconds left in Game 5 and missed.
Fajardo, who was 3-of-4 from the line before he clanked his charities, took the blame for the Beermen’s disappointing 87-83 loss.
“It’s just frustrating, I missed those free throws,” said Fajardo in Filipino on Sunday as his team finds itself on the brink of yielding the Commissioner’s Cup title. “Because of those misses, if I just got it to go the story might have been different.”
“I missed, that was on me. If I had made those free throws we could’ve won I could’ve changed the story. We lost, that’s on me.”
Overall, Fajardo still had a spectacular game, going 10-of-12 from the field for 23 points including a poster dunk in transition against Scottie Thompson that gave the Beermen an 83-78 lead.
San Miguel never scored again after that Fajardo slam after Ginebra ended the game on a 9-0 run.
“I don’t know until when I’ll carry the blame but we have to regroup, get some rest, and prepare for our next game,” said Fajardo. “It’s hard but we’ve been in this situation before so I think we can do it all over again.”
“We just have to give it our all, give our best, and we have to go all out.”