MANILA, Philippines—San Miguel’s prolific pair June Mar Fajardo and Christian Standhardinger made light work of the TNT’s defense all game long to push the Beermen to a 96-86 decision over KaTropa for the first of the final two semifinal spots at stake in the PBA Philippine Cup.
The league’s five-time Most Valuable Player paced the Beermen with 32 points while the sophomore forward tossed in 17 more in a highly efficient performance. Fajardo was perfect from the field, making all of his 11 attempts, while Standhardinger made eight of his total nine tries.
“There’s only one thing that we all saw from this game. Defense,” coach Leo Austria told reporters. “They were all self-motivated … They knew what to do. You could see it in their faces, their eyes that they wanted to win.”
The rest of San Miguel’s cast made their presence felt on defense, clamping down KaTropa to just 27 points at the halfway point before cruising to the victory and forging a semifinal date with top-ranked Phoenix Pulse.
“This is one of the few times we had a good start. That’s one thing we’ve been telling the team—that whenever we have a good start, everything will be fine, we sail smoothly going into the fourth quarter,” Austria said.
Terrence Romeo scored 11, again coming from the bench, while the usual suspects in Alex Cabagnot Chris Ross, Marcio Lassiter and Arwind Santos left their prints on the rebound and assist columns.
Fajardo added 14 boards to his name after getting banged up in Game 2.
TNT drew 16 points from RR Pogoy and three more double-digit performances from Jayson Castro, Brian Heruela, and Yousef Taha.
Unable to summon the form that pushed the Beermen to the limit in their past two meetings, the KaTropa couldn’t do anything but watch the lead pile up. They trailed by as many as 26 in the game.
But even after the emphatic victory, Austria stressed that the heaving a sigh of relief could wait.
“Phoenix is not No. 1 for nothing,” he said of his upcoming assignment who they face this Friday. “They really are contenders.”
“I just hope that whatever motivations we’ve had to day, we’re able to carry over into that game,” he added.
The scores:
San Miguel 96 – Fajardo 32, Standhardinger 17, Romeo 11, Cabagnot 8, Ross 8, Santos 7, Lassiter 6, Tubid 5, Rosser 2, Pessumal 0, Zamar 0.
TNT 86 – Pogoy 16, Heruela 10, Castro 10, Taha 10, Rosario 10, Williams 9, Bono 6, Reyes 5, A. Semerad 4, Trollano 2, Washington 2, Casino 2, Carey 0, D. Semerad 0.
Quarters: 25-10, 53-27, 77-55, 96-86.