Marcio Lassiter and June Mar Fajardo were the major keys in San Miguel Beermen’s 104-96 victory over the retooled Phoenix Fuel Masters in the PBA’s Season 43 curtain-raiser, Sunday at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
The six-foot-three sharpshooter scored half of his 20 points in the final frame, sparking a stunning 18-4 rally heading into the game’s homestretch that led to a wide 103-84 lead to knock out their opponents once and for all.
“We just attacked them. They are pressing us. They gave us a lot of opportunities to get some easy points,” recalled Lassiter of that run. “We knew we had June Mar down there so it’s a tough cover for them size-wise.
“Players stepped up and made shots and that’s pretty much what happened in the fourth quarter.”
But what really made the 30-year-old satisfied with their opening day victory was not just their fourth quarter surge, but the way head coach Leo Austria rotated his players. Unlike last year, 13 of the 15 Beermen were able to sniff the court.
Players such as Matt Ganuelas-Rosser and Von Pessumal benefitted the most from it. The former logged in 16 minutes and had four points and four rebounds, while the latter played 12:41 minutes and scored five.
Even new acquistion Chico Lanete had a decent amount of minutes, spending nearly 12 minutes on the floor — far from the playing time he had receive with Phoenix last season, where he only played an average of 9.2 minutes.
“It’s great, I love it!” lauded the seven-year veteran. “I loved to see that.
“Guys are gonna step up more and we just gotta keep getting used to putting more guys in, and keep playing our system with the new players.”
Nevertheless, Sunday’s victory was truly a commendable one — something that the Beermen can definitely build upon, as they are keenly looking to extend their Philippine Cup supremacy for the fourth straight year.
“It’s a good win for us,” the Gilas Pilipinas pioneer said. “We just gotta continue to play our brand and there’s a lot of errors we can work on.
“We just gotta continue to work on those things.”
