Sweet steal, escape, triumph for Beermen
With the confetti already on the rafters, the San Miguel Beermen wouldn’t wait for another game to let it fall amid the din of a championship celebration.
It rained down on the jubilant Beermen and their raucous supporters shortly after the buzzer, signaling their return as PBA champs with a conquest of gritty foes in the Magnolia Hotshots last Wednesday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
With an amazing effort in the last five minutes, the Beermen stole Game Six at the hands of the Hotshots, pulling off a dramatic 104102 triumph to reclaim the PBA Commissioner’s Cup crown.
CJ Perez, Jericho Cruz and Chris Ross provided the firepower with the opposing imports locked in a defensive battle, carrying the Beermen to a fightback from nine points down in the final 4:51 mark en route to San Miguel’s 29th championship in the league overall.
It was SMB’s fifth title in the Commissioner’s Cup and 19th in all in importflavored tournaments.
For coach Jorge Gallent, it’s a golden effort right in his first finals as head coach in the country’s premier cage league.
He lauded his boys for not giving up despite trailing most of the way.
Held to four points in the first half, Perez returned with his guns ablaze in the final half, exploding for 24 capped by a booming trey that shoved SMB ahead to stay at 103-99 with 48.7 ticks to go.
And being a steady force throughout the series, the Gilas Pilipinas mainstay was later crowned the Finals MVP winner, thus, completing a sweep having won the Best Player of the Conference honors earlier.
He’s the first to achieve such feat since June Mar Fajardo in last season’s Philippine Cup.
The Beermen won the series at 4-2 with earlier victories in Games 2 (103-95), 3 (109-85) and 5 (108-98).
Perez went 3-of-5 from the arc and 7-of-9 from the stripe in his 28-point sizzler in the clincher.
Bennie Boatwright had 19 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, June Mar Fajardo piled up 19 markers and 12 boards while Cruz and Don Trollano combined for five triples and a total of 22 markers. -