San Miguel Beer handed solo leader TNT its first defeat behind a scorching start and rolled to an 83-67 victory Wednesday, Sept. 8 in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Don Honorio Ventura State University in Bacolor, Pampanga.

The Beermen led 16-2 at the start and never looked back to climb in fourth spot at 4-2, a week after their Bacolor stint started in misery with a 110-104 overtime defeat to the Terrafirma Dyip, who at the time had a 0-4 record to begin the conference.

“I think that loss was a wake-up call para sa amin,” said coach Leo Austria. “It happened na kalaban namin ngayon ay (TNT) and this was a big game for us. I'm thankful for the players because yung sense or urgency nandun.”

SMB actually had a week-long break after its game four days prior against Alaska was postponed due to COVID-19 protocols.

Terrence Romeo and Marcio Lassiter sparked the early onslaught as SMB turned the battle of the league’s preseason favorites into a laugher.

Romeo scored eight of his 16 points in the first period while Lassiter had seven of his game-high 19 as the Beermen eventually ended the first 12 minutes of action with a 24-10 advantage/

SMB also held TNT, which actually scored the first basket of the contest through Troy Rosario, to a 4-of-17 shooting in that quarter.

The Beermen kept their lead in double digits till the end as the Tropang Giga’s main players from their three victories last week went cold.

Rookie Mikey Williams had just seven points on 3-of-13 shooting, backcourt partner Jayson Castro could only produce one point while veteran Kelly Willams went scoreless.

SMB’s Chris Ross had six steals all in the first half, putting him one behind former Purefoods guard Dindo Pumaren (902) for fifth in the all-time list while June Mar Fajardo hauled down 17 rebounds.

TNT coach Chot Reyes, whose team trailed 64-37, opted to field some of his reserves, with guard Kib Montalbo capitalizing on the heavy minutes and topscored for TNT with 13 points while adding three rebounds, four assists and two steals.

But the deficit proved to be too big to overcome and TNT scored its lowest points since a 77-63 loss to the same team in the 2013-14 PBA Philippine Cup when SMB was still known as Petron.

Mo Tautuaa and CJ Perez added 13 points apiece for the Beermen while RR Pogoy and Brian Heruela were the other Tropang Giga players in double figures with 10 each.
The scores:

SAN MIGUEL 83 — Lassiter 19, Romeo 16, Perez 13, Tautuaa 13, Santos 9, Fajardo 8, Ross 3, Zamar 2, Pessumal 0, Gamalinda 0.

TNT 67 — Montalbo 13, Heruela 10, Pogoy 10, Rosario 9, Williams M. 7, Alejandro 7, Erram 5, Marcelo 3, Mendoza 2, Castro 1, Williams K. 0, Exciminiano 0, Reyes 0.

Quarters:  24-10, 43-30, 64-44, 83-67.