MANILA: For a team that’s so much on a roll, one would think that San Miguel would use the coming week to take a break. Not so.
The Beermen last night rolled to their sixth straight win, extending the mark in the Fiesta Cup after a 95-80 destruction of sister team and defending champion Barangay Ginebra at the Araneta Coliseum.
After that, Siot Tanquingcen said that he will use the team’s two-week lull to develop a lot of things.
“There are other areas where we are not consistent,” Tanquingcen said. “Like in defense and in ball rotation, we sometimes don’t have an offensive flow. There is the tendency of some players to play one-on-one.
“We don’t want that. We need to be able to get everyone involved.”
That certainly looked to be the case last night, when Tanquingcen got 19 points each from Jay Washington and Olsen Racela and only one from 10 players failing to score. Import Gabriel Freeman and Mick Pennisi finished in twin digits for the tournament leaders.
“Everyone is stepping up every game,” the coach said. “Different games, different people are stepping up. It’s an advantage on our part because we just don’t rely on our import.
“But still, we have a lot of work to do,” Tnaquingcen added. “There’s no point in resting at this stage. Our job is not even half finished.”
San Miguel broke away in the fourth quarter using clutch three-point sniping from Hontiveros and some timely inside baskets from Washington to deal the Gin Kings their fifth straight loss, now the tournament mark in futility.
Jay-Jay Helterbrand fired 24 points and Rod Nealy now seems to be in danger of losing his job after being held to just 21. He did have 15 rebounds, though, but his efforts still couldn’t prevent the Kings from dropping to a cellar-dwelling 1-5 card.
San Miguel started to inch away in the third, outscoring the Kings by 10 to easily erase a two-point halftime deficit. And when the game hung in the balance, the Beermen simply had more firepower with Washington, Hontiveros, Freeman and Pennisi scoring all but seven of the team’s 27 fourth quarter points.
“It’s a blessing,” added Tanquingcen, referring to the team’s fine start.
Meanwhile, Rain or Shine stayed tugging at the coattails of the Beermen after pounding out a 118-112 triumph over Burger King in the first game.
Jai Lewis, the deceivingly burly import, fired 40 points, had 23 rebounds and four blocks to lead the Elasto Painters, who won for the fourth straight night and improved to 5-1, also the franchise’s best-ever start.
Built like a defensive tackle but playing with the agility of a power forward, Lewis frustrated Burger King counterpart Shawn Daniels no end, especially in the second half where he scored 18 in the third and 12 in the final frame.
“It was simple, Jai was incredible for us today,” said coach Caloy Garcia of his import, who also showed a feathery touch by hitting 4-of-6 triple attempts, 7-of-9 two-pointers and missing just two of 16 total free throws.
Lewis hit just 2-of-5 from triple territory and 14-of-25 from the stripe in his first three games, all Rain or Shine victories that didn’t need too much offense from him because his back up local crew clicked.
Last night, when he needed to, Lewis stepped up big time.
The 300-pounder knocked down a leisurely-taken triple from right corner with 1:17 left, giving the Painters the lead to stay, 109-108, before draining two clutch free throws in the final nine seconds to seal the win, 114-110.
Burger King lost coach Yeng Guiao to successive technical fouls with 28.8 seconds to go, dropping to 4-3 in the process after failing to take advantage of 24 Rain or Shine errors, 16 of them in the first half.
In fact, Burger King ended the first half having just a three-point lead, before Lewis ran amuck and carried the entire team on his broad shoulders. “We can’t commit those many turnovers and (expect to) keep on winning,” Garcia added.
“The nice thing about this team is that everyday, someone steps up. Basically, the thing that’s carrying this team is teamwork.”
There were four locals who scored in twin digits for Garcia, with Don Dulay scoring all of his eight points inside the final five minutes, when he was surprisingly thrown back in the fray vice Gabe Norwood.
