Beermen shoot for solo lead vs Road Warriors in CDO
Though far from their desired form, the San Miguel Beermen are among the early frontrunners in the PBA Philippine Cup, with a shot at the solo lead when they take on the NLEX Road Warriors in a Petron Blaze Saturday Special at the Xavier U Gym in Cagayan de Oro.
The Beermen gained a piece of the lead on tough wins over the Alaska Milk Aces (93-88) and Mahindra (94-91) in their last two games. Before that, they fell in an 85-92 upset by the Phoenix Fuel Masters.
Coach Leo Austria and his troops, however, have a legitimate shot at the solo lead as they tangle with the injury-crippled NLEX squad at 5 p.m. in the first out-of-town match in the all-Filipino tourney.
The Beermen currently share top position with the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters and the GlobalPort Batang Pier at 3-1. The Road Warriors, on the other hand, have won only just once in four starts.
NLEX got off to a triumphant start under coach Yeng Guiao, topping Alaska Milk (99-97), then dropped its next three matches against Meralco (93-106), Star (75-99) and Blackwater (85-96).
The Road Warriors were without three key players in Garvo Lanete, Asi Taulava and Rico Villanueva in their last game.
With June Mar and their other Elite players, the Beermen have been struggling as of late. They barely scraped past the Floodbuster, 94-91, the last time out.
Clutch free throws by Fajardo, Arwind Santos and Alex Cabagnot in the final minute saved SMB from what could have been another loss to the Mahindra team that the Beermen failed to beat in the last two
conferences.
Despite another double-double performance by Fajardo and Santos’ own productive game, the Beermen played catch-up basketball most of the way and barely hung on to win in the end. Mahindra even had a chance
to send the game into overtime but Alex Mallari missed a three-point try at the buzzer.
“We had to rely largely on our veterans who had to play heavy minutes. As much as possible, I want to rotate a lot of players to preserve the guys for the playoffs. But we’ve been struggling. We won coming from behind in both our last two games,” said coach Leo Austria.
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