The San Miguel Beermen’s championship swagger showed in the second half, as they shut down the TNT Katropa, 109-97, in a heated Game Three of the 2017 Commissioner’s Cup Finals bout, Sunday night at a jam-packed SMART-Arenata Coliseum.
The victory propels San Miguel to a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven title series.
“This was a hard-fought game,” said Beermen head coach Leo Austria. “I think what happened to the game is we did not have any major adjustment. We just kept our intensity high.”
Alex Cabagnot led SMB with 28 markers on 43 percent shooting alongside nine rebounds and six assists. Charles Rhodes, who is celebrating his birthday today, had a monster outing with 25 points and 20 rebounds.
The Beermen posted the game’s first-ever double-digit lead, 88-78, after a Rhodes lay-up from the post at the 9:31 mark of the payoff period, and from there, locked down the Katropa and prevented them to storm back.
San Miguel’s lead even rose to as much as 14, 104-90, as Chris Ross nailed a shot from beyond the arc with 1:19 left to play, enough to seal the victory and the much-needed leverage in the race-to-four series.
However, despite the lead, Austria insists that there is still a long way to go in the series.
“Well, it’s far from over. We don’t want to celebrate this game because this win is nothing yet,” said Austria. “We need to prepare for our fourth game — we have a commanding lead ‘pag naging 3-1, but it’s really hard to get win number three.”
Marcio Lassiter finally found his groove on offense after a two-game slump and played his best game yet in the series, finishing with 16 points to go with seven dimes. Arwind Santos chipped in 10 markers off the bench.
Back-up point guard RR Garcia paced the Katropa with 19 points. Import Joshua Smith though had an all-around performance with 18 points on 63 percent shooting along with 14 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks.
Jayson Castro supplied 17 points on 18 shots, but inadvertently committed 10 of the Katropa’s 23 turnovers.
SMB shot 47 percent from the floor, with most of their shots accounted from their 23 team assists. They lost the battle of the boards though, 54-46, but made up for it in terms of fastbreaks as they made 18 points off it.
Both squads will have enough time to regroup as Game Four will take place on Wednesday, June 28, 7:00 PM still at the Big Dome.
The Scores:
San Miguel (109) – Cabagnot 28, Rhodes 25, Ross 17, Lassiter 16, Santos 10, Fajardo 6, Heruela 5, Semerad 2, Tubid 0, Espinas 0.
TNT (97) – Garcia 19Smith 18, Castro 17, Semerad 12, De Ocampo 9, Williams 8, Tautuaa 7, Reyes 7, Pogoy 0, Rosario 0.
Quarterscores: 23-23, 46-47, 79-72, 109-97.
