Safe to say that June Mar Fajardo is feeling a lot better. And that has San Miguel Beer enjoying good footing, so to speak, with the Beermen’s PBA Philippine Cup semifinal series against sister team Barangay Ginebra now down to a sprint.
A 107-82 victory by the Beermen over the Gin Kings on Wednesday night at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay where the 6-foot-11 Fajardo played 31 minutes and finished with 12 points and 19 rebounds certainly gives San Miguel momentum heading into Game 5 on Friday where they break a 2-2 tie in their best-of-seven series.
“Everyone that coach (Leo Austria) tapped to play played well,” Fajardo, who hobbled in the previous two games because of a calf injury sustained in Game 1, said in Filipino. “That was big for us.”
San Miguel wheeled away in the third quarter after its defense held Ginebra to a paltry 12 points, and that could spill over to the next game, especially with Fajardo getting another full day’s rest.
CJ Perez led the Beermen with 19 points, six of them coming in the telling third quarter where San Miguel turned a one-point halftime deficit into a 17-point lead entering the final frame.
“We all know that it would be hard for us to come back from a 1-3 deficit (by losing Game 4),” Fajardo, who started for the first time in the last three games, added. “So coaching staff made sure that we came out with intensity while executing our game plan.
“Fortunately, we were able to do both,” Fajardo concluded.
The winner of this series will advance to face the survivor of the TNT-Rain or Shine semifinals, which the Tropang 5G lead, 2-1, going into their Game 4 at press time.
Igniting the breakaway
San Miguel also found its outside shot again, hitting 14 triples compared to the three they made in Game 3.
Juami Tiongson, seeing action in his first semifinal series after a long history with doldrum teams, and Rodney Brondial actually hit triples to highlight the San Miguel breakaway in the third.
“It was very obvious that the energy of the team was very high,” Austria, calling the shots in a full tournament for the first time since his comeback during the middle of the Commissioner’s Cup last December, said. “A lot of our perimeter shots went in unlike before.
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“[And] defense was also another thing we focused on,” Austria added as his game plan succeeded in disrupting the Ginebra flow, with the Kings held to 18 assists, “which is below their average, and it proved our defense worked.”
There were six players in twin digits for Austria, while Troy Rosario led the Kings with 14 points and Jamie Malonzo accounted for 12.
