Never does Shabazz Muhammad run out of confidence, so much so that he believes it would only spell trouble for the opposition once he gets going,
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday night, when San Miguel figured in a PBA Governors’ Cup encounter with Meralco at SMART Araneta Coliseum.
The NBA veteran single-handedly carried the Beermen on his shoulders, as he erupted for 57 points on top of 19 rebounds to lift his side to the 115-110 victory after being down by as much as 26 points in the first half.
“I told my teammates once my shot gets on, the people are gonna be in trouble because they can’t sag off,” said Muhammad postgame, overwhelmed by the thrilling triumph that earlier seemed to be hard to pull off.
It has been a while since such a dazzling performance was seen in the league. Per league stats chief Fidel Mangonon III, the 29-year-old scored the most points in a PBA game since the duel of two memorable imports in 2016.
San Miguel’s Tyler Wilkerson had 58, while NLEX’s Al Thornton fired 69 markers against one another in a 131-127 triple overtime win by the Beermen on April 5 in a Commissioner’s Cup clash — coincidentally at the Big Dome.
Muhammad made 45 of his points in the second half, a stretch that saw him nail all five of his triples — some of which was feet away from the arc.
And yes, he outscored the entire Bolts all by himself in the last 24 minutes. The team scored just 40 as they struggled to find an answer to the American cager, who ironically was supposed to be their import this conference.
“Because of the matchup. And everybody was so hesitant, tentative because of the lamang ng kalaban,” said head coach Leo Austria, when asked what prompted SMB to simply defer to Muhammad.
“And he’s out there to win games. When we found out he can shoot from that range, that’s it. And with his athleticism, he can penetrate and with a soft shot, that’s it,” the champion bench tactician furthered.
Muhammad’s performance, though, almost went for naught when he missed both of his free throws with 31.8 seconds left, which could’ve easily given the lead back to his side since they were trailing by just a solitary point.
The ball was already in the hands of Meralco center Raymond Almazan, but June Mar Fajardo was there to prevent his counterpart from fully securing it. The ball went loose, and Muhammad managed to pick it up.
Then, of course, he cleaned up his own miss, giving the Beermen the 111-110 edge with 29.0 ticks to go. And when Chris Ross forced another Tony Bishop error, Muhammad sealed the deal with a perfect trip to the line.
Though it was definitely him who made the win possible, the UCLA product gave credit to the reigning six-time MVP for that particular play.
Photo by PBA Images
“I missed the two free throws. I thought the second one was going in but man, June Mar, I mean he’s a load in there. He’s a beast. He’s played so hard and man, I just appreciate him for that,” he said.
“Because if the ball didn’t bounce off right there, maybe they would’ve won the game. That was all on June Mar, and he was definitely Player of the Game with that one,” he furthered as Fajardo finished with 16 and 14.
Muhammad tipped his hat as well to the entire Beermen, proud of the effort they showed as a collective that led to an outright quarterfinal trip.
“Coach gave us a really great pep talk at halftime. We just weren’t giving any effort, and that second half, we all gave group effort and, man we’re all just giving all we had and you see what we did. We got the win. It was great!”
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