San Miguel Beer came alive in the second half as Jericho Cruz and June Mar Fajardo took turns in punishing TNT to claim a 115-99 victory in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Thursday, July 7.
It was Fajardo who first made his presence felt, throwing his weight around inside the paint before Cruz delivered the telling blows in the huge third quarter explosion for the Beermen to list their seventh win in eight games and give their bid for the Top 2 spot a huge boost.
Cruz reset his career-high to 30 points on a 12-of-20 clip from the field while Fajardo posted 30 points and 16 rebounds. CJ Perez orchestrated the attack for the Beermen with 12 points and 10 assists while Rodney Brondial had a double-double of 12 points and 18 boards.
“This is very important for any team yung role of the players especially off the bench and there are players in the last three games who are stepping up,” said San Miguel head coach Leo Austria.
“This is the most important game in the elimination because we’re looking for the one and two spots. Right now, we’re doing good, hopefully we can sustain it and we try to avoid any complication regarding the tie, getting into the top two,” he added.
Kelly Williams and Jayson Castro paced TNT with 20 and 17 points respectively but only got 11 points from Mikey Williams who was obviously bothered by the SMB defense with his measly 3-of-14 clip from the field.
Ahead only by two, 61-59, early in the third frame, San Miguel stepped its foot on the gas pedal as it went on a 12-4 run to create the first double-digit spread of the match at 73-63. TNT had four unanswered points but Cruz, who scored 16 of his total during that quarter, retaliated with a 9-2 personal run to establish a 13-point advantage, 82-69.
It was all Beermen from that point as guys like Brondial, Fajardo and Simon Enciso all followed suit in the final frame, further padding the lead to its highest at 19, 107-88, with 3:51 left in the game.
TNT blew away its five-game win streak and dropped to a 7-3 record in the standings.