San Miguel injected more hope into its top-seed aspirations after mauling an all-Filipino Rain or Shine side, 129-116, in the penultimate game of the 2023 PBA Governors’ Cup elimination round, Friday at the Philsports Arena in Pasig.
Vic Manuel and Mo Tautuaa connived for the key 13-2 run towards a 113-93 lead with eight minutes left to play, which proved to be enough to restore order and eventually enable the Beermen to finish the preliminaries with a 9-2 record.
SMB will now wait for the outcome of the TNT (9-1)-Barangay Ginebra (8-2) affair later tonight to determine its seeding entering the quarterfinals, where it could end up as no. 1 for having the superior quotient between the two.
Manuel and Tautua’a finished with 23 points apiece, with the latter adding 12 rebounds to his name as the two bigs showed that they are more than capable of manning the frontcourt with June Mar Fajardo out.
CJ Perez tallied his own double-double of 20 points and 12 rebounds. Cam Clark and Marcio Lassiter also scored 20 each while Jericho Cruz added 12.
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The second game of each PBA gameday is live-streamed on SMART Sports.
