Keeping the streaks alive

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

It was clear that right from the opening tip that San Miguel Beer wasn’t going to fool around in this game.

Going to the strongest—and literally biggest—parts of their game, the Beermen thumped TNT with reckless abandon on Wednesday night to score a 96-86 win and tab a Final Four slot in the PBA Philippine Cup that kept dreams of a “five-peat” alive at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

June Mar Fajardo, the league’s reigning—and only—five-time Most Valuable Player, was on attack mode early and finished with numbers befitting his mammoth frame: 32 points and 14 rebounds in just over 33 minutes in leading the Beermen to marching on to the next round opposite top-ranked Phoenix Pulse.

Magnolia broke away late in the third period and then fended off numerous Barangay Ginebra comebacks to prevail, 85-72, in their KO match later in the night.

Paul Lee fired 25 points and three more added twin figures in leading the Hotshots to a separate best-of-seven series with No. 2 Rain or Shine as Magnolia stayed in range of winning another title after ruling the Governors’ Cup last season.

Christian Standhardinger, the 6-foot-8 sophomore forward, tossed in 17 points in an equally 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 its presence felt on defense, clamping down on the KaTropa and holding the enemy to just 27 points for the first two quarters on the way to the easy victory that is not reflected on the final score.

“This is one of the few times that 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 Alex Cabagnot, Chris Ross, Marcio Lassiter and Arwind Santos contributed heavily in the other statistical categories.

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 could not do anything but watch the lead pile up. They trailed by as many as 26.