ALMOST THERE
ANTIPOLO—The story of San Miguel Beer’s campaign in the PBA Philippine Cup is more than June Mar Fajardo’s recent Best Player of the Conference win or CJ Perez’s timely explosion in that classic Game 3 triumph. It’s also not just about Don Trollano being the barometer of consistency or Jericho Cruz’s swagger.
Friday night proved that after the Beermen’s role players rose to the occasion for a huge turnaround in the second half to beat the TNT Tropang 5G, 96-82, for a 3-2 lead in their Finals series here.
San Miguel is now one win away from continuing its reign in the PBA’s most prestigious competition after the Beermen came out on top of a highly-intense affair where Mo Tautuaa, Kris Rosales and Rodney Brondial churned out big contributions.
The three, together with Marcio Lassiter, Fajardo, Cruz and Trollano, completed the Beermen’s big fightback after they fell behind, 14-2, at the start and by as many as 16 later on as San Miguel moved within another win of thwarting the Tropang 5G for the second straight season here.
“Even before the playoffs, we rely more on the bench players. And tonight it showed,” said coach Leo Austria.
Brondial had 17 points and 15 rebounds in a huge performance despite playing with a swollen ankle, while Rosales pumped in 12 points that went with four assists and Tautuaa had 11 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
The Beermen can finish off the Tropang 5G with another win on Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
“You don’t win games in the first quarter. We know there are four quarters in a basketball game,” Brondial said as the Beermen bounced back after being battered in a 110-87 loss in Game 4.
“We really wanted to win because it’s hard to fall behind in the series,” he continued. “We were also motivated by how bad we played last game, so we wanted to really bounce back.”
For TNT, its aim of playing consistently for a full 48 minutes for the second straight game did not happen as its stellar outside shooting and defensive work that led to the early lead slowly vanished.
Backs against the wall, TNT would like nothing more than to atone for its disappointing showing and try to force a deciding Game 7.
Game 7, if necessary, is on Wednesday at MOA.
TNT played with a man down after RR Pogoy sat out due to his recurring hamstring injury.
Tropang 5G team manager Jojo Lastimosa said Pogoy is “most likely” to sit out the rest of the Finals.
