June Mar Fajardo and the San Miguel Beermen in Game 5 of the PBA Philippine Cup Finals against Meralco Bolts. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Down but not out.
That’s exactly how June Mar Fajardo sees San Miguel Beermen and their chances in the PBA Philippine Cup Finals after going down 3-2 in the best-of-seven series against Meralco.
The Beermen are now just a win away from letting the All-Filipino crown slip, but Fajardo believes his team has what it takes to drag the duel into a deciding Game 7.
HIGHLIGHTS: PBA Finals Game 5 San Miguel vs Meralco
“We still have a chance. We’ll bounce back. This is a long series,” said Fajardo in Filipino after their 92-88 loss to the Bolts in Game 5 on Friday.
“We’ll work hard on that next game because we want to get the championship [again]. We won’t just give it that easily… We’ll have to play San Miguel basketball.”
Fajardo played like his usual self with a monster double-double of 38 points and 18 rebounds, showing another reason why he was hailed as the Philippine Cup’s Best Player a few days ago.
READ: Meralco on brink of first PBA title after Game 5 win over San Miguel
The other Beermen, though, had some struggles with the guard tandem of CJ Perez and Marcio Lassiter ice cold in the crucial loss.
Lassiter finished with six points, missing eight of his 11 tries from. Whole Perez had 17, he had quite the difficulty getting there shooting just four of his 16 attempts.
San Miguel Beermen bench. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
But while having San Miguel’s lethal shooters frozen posed a problem, nothing was more detrimental to San Miguel than seeing their assists count drop.
“[We had the] same problems in our previous losses,” said Fajardo.
“Our assists were low and that’s why we lost. That’s what coach (Jorge Gallent) told us. We almost had great shots too but we just couldn’t get them to go,” added the seven-time league MVP.
San Miguel just has one day to try to recover with Game 6 set for Sunday, also at Smart Araneta Coliseum.