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MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Dominance continues for the San Miguel Beermen.
Led by the import they might soon replace, the Beermen buried Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, 112-96, on Sunday, March 9 in the PLDT myDSL Commissioner’s Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
American import Josh Boone made a case for himself to stay on board as San Miguel’s import by dropping 32 points on 13-of-19 field goals along with 21 rebounds.
Boone, 29, is reportedly set to be replaced by American Kevin Jones.
“Josh has been professional beyond belief. I’ll wait to speak with my management tonight and I assure you everyone will be informed in the very near future with regards to where we’re going,” said Beermen active consultant Todd Purves of Boone’s status.
“Regardless of the direction the management determines, I can’t say enough good things about Josh Boone and his level of professionalism and the effort he gave knowing he’s in an adverse situation. I really tip my hat to him.”
Head coach Biboy Ravanes also added, “This is a good problem to have anyways.”
Both coaches did not give any hint as to whether or not they will be endorsing Boone to the management, considering his back-to-back impressive performances.
“That’ll stay in-house,” Purves said. “Whatever advice I give to our management, I will share only with our management and then answer the questions afterward.”
The Beermen continued to be an offensive juggernaut for their second straight game, taking advantage of every defensive lapse on the part of Ginebra.
San Miguel came out the gates on fire, dropping 37 points in the opening frame alone. They never looked back from that point on even as Ginebra put up a gallant effort in the third where the Gin Kings cut the deficit down to 10, 78-68, heading into the fourth.
The closest Ginebra came was 80-72 at the 10:18 mark of the fourth on a Japeth Aguilar basket, fishing Rico Maierhofer’s 6th foul in the process.
But the Beermen quickly snuffed out Ginebra’s momentum with a back-breaking 11-0 run to push the lead back up to 91-72.
It was smooth sailing for them after that, even leading by as much as 21 points, 97-76, with 5:28 on the clock on an Arwind Santos bucket.
“I’m happy with the final score,” Purves said. “It’s the second game of the conference so you can never get too high or too low. I thought our effort was there for the second game in a row and I’m proud of that.”
He explained how these two wins serve as the seeds for the future.
“We’ve got such a long way to go with regards to building our team and so many things to address still,” he said. “But I look forward to doing it with this group of men.”
The Beermen’s effort did not falter all game long, especially in the fourth where they nearly equaled their first period output with 34 points.
They killed Ginebra in second-chance opportunities, in large part thanks to Boone with his multiple putbacks and tip-ins, with 22 points. At the same time they were able to limit their miscues to just 9 and forced Ginebra to 16–from which they fished 25 points.
Santos and Marcio Lassiter added 18 and 15 points each for the Beermen, who had a 58.2% field goal shooting percentage as a team.
On the part of Ginebra, the 33 points and 11 rebounds of import Leon Rodgers was not enough to pull them back into the game.
Mark Caguioa was a perfect 3-of-3 from three-point land as well for his 15 points. But the Gin Kings were halted in their tracks by the Beermen with only 4 fastbreak attempts and two points off of that.
San Miguel, on the other hand, was also a scoring machine on the break with 18 attempts and 24 points.
Not much help came from Greg Slaughter and Japeth Aguilar, who only had 13 and 4 points, respectively.
Scores:
San Miguel 112: Boone 32, Santos 18, Lassiter 15, Mercado 14, Hubalde 9, Ross 7, Kramer 5, Maierhofer 4, Lutz 4, Tubid 3, Duncil 1, Marata 0, Taha 0.
Ginebra 96: Rodgers 33, Caguioa 15, Slaughter 13, Ellis 10, Tenorio 8, Helterbrand 5, Aguilar 4, Baracael 2, Reyes 2, Urbiztondo 2, Mamaril 2, Ababou 0.
Quarter scores: 37-23, 58-44, 78-68, 112-96.
– Rappler.com
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