SMB’s escape act—again
INDEED, habits die hard— for San Miguel Beer, that is. And it happened again only two days back.
With time expiring, Marcio Lassiter sneaked in an under goal stab to give San Miguel Beer another pulsating 98-96 win on Wednesday over TNT Tropang Giga at the DHVSU Gym in Bacolor, Pampanga.
And it came after back-to-back misses by Beermen June Mar Fajardo and Arwind Santos following TNT Troy Rosario’s game-tying three.
Lassiter’s marginal shot came almost unexpectedly as an assortment of bodies from both sides battled amid a knotted rebound scramble in Game 2 of the PBA Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals.
But as fate would have it, Lassiter, a virtual Lilliputian among giants grappling for the loose ball, scooped the leather and slipped it in lightning speed through what seemed like a thousand armpits for the winning bank shot.
It was SMB’s third game-stealer in its last four games in couple weeks, in the process highlighting its notorious but glorious reputation as the league’s chief escape artist.
And two of those game-winners were by Lassiter himself, the first one was a gunbeating triple— his bread and butter— against Alaska that helped shove SMB to a best-of-three quarterfinal clash against Northport.
The next escape act was authored by Alex Cabagnot, who scored the winning shot on a driving pull up jumper from the left elbow that greased SMB’s semifinal date with TNT.
But oddly enough, though, it was Lassiter who missed SMB’s winning shot on a bungled dribble-drive dare that gave TNT an 89-88 squeaker in Game 1.
You can’t win them all, you know.
Still, Lassiter’s series-tying shot on Wednesday was hugely significant as it completed SMB’s colossal rally from 80-61 in the last two minutes of the third quar t er.
Why so big a margin as 19 points could be so obliterated just like that remains a puzzle to me up to now.
A fool-proof formula for keeping double-digit margins intact still in the lab after all this time?
And I thought TNT’s Chot Reyes was your kind of coach that is of Homeland Security type? Lead protector beyond compare?
But what is clear now is, with Wednesday’s win, SMB has retaken momentum, an advantage the Beermen are famously known to exploit to the hilt. Isn’t their five straight All-Filipino titles proudly pocketed previously proof enough?
Today’s Game 3 should prove interesting.